Toronto-based multidisciplinary design studio, STACKLAB, and its New York-based showroom partner, Maison Gerard have launched a new collection of Stackabl, an innovative system for designing custom furniture – and lighting – without the waste.
Photo credit: Patrick Biller
Developed closely with regional manufacturers, and aided by algorithms and robotics, Stacklab’s system identifies remnant inventory in warehouses and factories (located within a 150-mile radius of its studio), puts it back through a manufacturer’s own machines, and into the hands of its own experts.
A simple online configurator integrates the designer into this process. Proprietary and patent-pending, the Stackabl configurator allows users to turn high quality Merino felt offcuts into custom furniture according to their choices, from colours and patterns, to dimensions and densities.
Photo credit: Patrick Biller
The inaugural Stackabl collection, launched in 2021, is a playful assembly of furniture. Created using the Stackabl configurator, each piece is constructed by regional specialists according to available resources.
Six hand-selected New York designers – including Champalimaud Design, Frampton Co, Laura Kirar Design, Drake/Anderson, Georgis & Mirgorodsky, and Benoist F. Drut – were tasked with realizing their own visions. This resulted in a striking array of characterful works – from simple slipper chair to extravagant chaise lounge – that belong to both past and future.
“If Stackabl’s 2021 furniture is its ‘haute couture’ line, then its 2022 pendant collection can be considered its ‘ready-to-wear’ offering,” says the company.
With the help of Anthony Frank Keeler, formerly of Rich Brilliant Willing and AvroKO, Stackabl took a holistic approach, designing both the lights’ internal and external elements around the original system, reusing most of the same components found in the furniture collection, and using the very same network of regional suppliers and manufacturers.
The pendants are modular products: consumers can customize any of the configurator’s five SKUs as they wish, choosing the length of the internal structure, as well as the diameter of the felt discs. Like track lighting, consumers dictate the location and frequency of the luminaires, in this case a cast-acrylic diffuser with embedded LEDs. Lightweight, dimmable, sound-dampening, environmentally responsible, fully customizable, and competitively priced, the pendants are ideal for innumerable environments, from residential to contract to hospitality.
To illustrate just how easy the configurator is to use, and to demonstrate the possible looks that can be achieved, Stackabl tapped designers Sarah Coleman, Anthony Frank Keeler, and Wisse Trooster to each configure multiple lights. These fixtures (and their availability in the Stackabl configurator) debuted in June during Milan Design Week in the Isola Design District.
Stackabl has just configured new pendants which will be shown in a group exhibition entitled “Composition and Layout: Contemporary Design and Objects” at Mindy Solomon in Miami, Florida from September 17 to October 22. The colourways of the pendants presented will pay homage to the locale, and they fit right into the gallery’s playful landscape. We hope to see you there.
