As creators of tomorrow’s workplaces, our job is to envision the solutions that improve people’s work experiences and help them to feel comfortable and inspired. That means staying curious, anticipating what workers need and want, and producing the unexpected for all the environments that bring new life to work.
In celebration of our tenth anniversary, John Hamilton, Director of Global Design for Coalesse, created a list of ten favorite Coalesse products, designed by or in collaboration with the Coalesse Design Group. Each one embodied the unexpected when it was introduced. This drive to innovate, while bringing beauty and lasting craft to our products, is part of our heritage. And it’s the key to how we see our work over the next decades—finding the most interesting ways to respond to new and more complex challenges, as the world of work itself rapidly evolves.
Join John as he shares the insights and inspirations behind these products that help us tell the story of Coalesse.
Coalesse Design Group with Toan Nguyen
“Lagunitas was the natural outgrowth of behaviors we encountered with our original Bix work booth. We realized Bix wasn’t designed for long-term, focused work—the seats were too deep and intended for more relaxed social interactions. So, we designed a special, articulating back cushion that would allow an easy transfer between that casual social posture and an upright task posture. That allowed people to switch work modes without having to move from one location to another. One small transformation added immense flexibility to the role of a booth and thus changed the category.”
Coalesse Design Group with Patricia Urquiola
“For this outside-of-the-box project, we were curious about many people’s tendency to work lower to the floor, or to use the floor as an extended, informal surface to spread work out on during assignments. So the idea behind these soft lounges was to be literally more grounded and comfortable, in a very low, lounge like, enveloping posture. We added the convertible element with a foldout cushion to let you stretch out on a chaise and be even closer to the floor. The pieces have multiple personalities that you can engage with.”
Coalesse Design Group with Scott Wilson & MINIMAL
“We know that meetings are lasting longer: the hard problems that we’re all trying to solve take time. As people sit, they want to cross their legs, push back from the table and then pull back up to the table, reference their technology, recline, move. So, how could we offer a space that would be thoughtful and comfortable for longer duration collaborations? The notion behind SW_1 was to eloquently rethink the meeting room. The chairs are lower and more intimate, with a lounging posture. They have knit backs that breathe, swivel bases that promote conversational flow. There are extendable tablets on the tables that come to you, so that you stay more relaxed and instead have your technology move back and forth. These considerations became a whole collection to help make structured work feel less formal.”
Coalesse Design Group with Jean-Marie Massaud
“This project started with an investigation of how to bring sophisticated design to private seating that could be a world of its own. It was an outgrowth of earlier personal pods that aimed to be a space-within-a-space; now we have enclaves in an office where you might go to do a video call, or focused work, or just rejuvenate, and these spaces do need a new kind of denlike chair. The first Massaud lounge and work lounge groups were created to blend work and refuge, luxury and utility and deep comfort. That led us to the conference group, where we combined the latest applied seating science with more designer choice in fitted and loose options for the upholstery. And together, the chairs provide design continuity across different applications. The idea with Massaud was to come for the work and stay for the chair.”
Coalesse Design Group
“The image of the communal table has a lot of emotional resonance for people. It’s a hearth in many ways, an anchor. We wanted to bring that central sense of community into work with long tables that could function socially at bar height in kitchens, as well as collaborative worktables with different styling and warmer associations than traditional meeting tables or bench systems. Potrero415 references iconic studio and library tables as well as picnic tables, in a distilled, modern form language. We added enormous functionality: the tables have power, and the power cables are hidden inside of the legs so that nothing interferes with the lines of the form. Now we’re turning to more personalization and scale options, so that tabletops can be made in other fine, solid materials and new sizes of the table can work in smaller settings.”
Coalesse Design Group with Michael Young
“The great thing about LessThanFive is that it started in a material exploration, not any particular furniture form. We were invited to investigate what we could do with carbon fiber, which was an emergent source but not a material that was really being applied yet to furniture at that time. Its unique properties let us develop many benefits and apply new technology in exciting ways to a classic chair design. These ultra-lightweight, durable forms could be seamlessly molded, which cut down on waste, time and cost, while actually increasing creativity and design with more intricate shapes and infinite finish and color options. People are always visibly delighted when they pick up one of these chairs. They still can’t believe they’re as light as they are.”
Coalesse Design Group
“Both of these collections were made with the intent to stretch the range of work lounges toward more unique styles and really elegant upholstery quality. The minute you bring upholstered seating into an office environment, you’re blurring the lines between what we associate with home and with work—sofas, sectionals, lounges, generous armchairs. That blurring or crossover goes back to the origins of Coalesse. But it’s not just work-home; it’s casual-conservative, formal-informal, tailored-plush, public-private spaces. Work furniture with a different level of softness and support, that gives you more choice. With these lounges we also solved for work in ways that a domestic sofa wouldn’t, by adding power, to leverage the tools we knew people would be using with this type of seating.”
Coalesse Design Group with Cory Grosser
“We wanted to make a finely crafted, simple coffee table series that, again, was about this idea of transcending boundaries. It’s a design that could go back and forth in live-work situations and fit in either. There’s a mixed materiality and a playfulness built into the program that allow the designer to have fun with the options and really create a personalized piece. You can combine frame and tabletop in paint and wood in either direction, explore color, add glass or laminate or another solid surface. So the table becomes something very custom-feeling even though its lines are so calm and spare.”
Coalesse Design Group with Emilia Borgthorsdottir
“This project was about redefining the occasional table, and how the simplest pieces could be used in a variety of ways to create different spaces. There are two shapes in two heights, all solid yet open, which function both for storage and as intriguing design elements. And, they are mobile, so that designers and workers can rearrange and configure the tables at will. We incorporated a playful range of mixed material finishes for more design sophistication, so that the interior gloss would either contrast or converge with the exterior. And then we added the option of power to make the tables even more functional as a convenient charging station.”
Coalesse Design Group with WilliamsSorel
“This collection was the very first Coalesse-designed product. In our beginnings, we had a portfolio of legacy products from each of our three original brands, and a collection of partner products from other design companies. So, Denizen was a turning point that embodied our own authorship, how we were interpreting and responding to the very new idea of live-work aesthetics at that time, and how we saw that this could change the office. The pieces certainly came out of the spirit of a den or a traditional private office. In their craftsmanship and design, they could exist as easily at home as at work. Denizen blurred those lines—this was our original crossover product.”
