The Executive
The Executive is a furniture series where Jenny Nordberg together with Soeco explore furniture reuse, specifically the reappropriation of second-hand furniture into new designs. Jenny Nordberg's self-initiated goal was to utilise the least desirable parts, objects and details, from a stock of recyclable pre-owned office furniture.
Nordberg has deliberately chosen not to adhere to the most conspicuous functions of furniture parts nor to follow the most obvious design paths that they suggest. Alternatively, she has treated the objects as a catalogue of parts, disassociating them entirely from their original purpose and viewing them instead as uncorrupted raw material; a library of possibilities. In this way, the material is viewed with optimism, opportunity, and flexibility. It loses its past association with ‘waste’ and redundancy. By shifting a simple perception, eradicating expectation and bias (both hers and ours) Nordberg alters the context of these unwanted elements and creates a positive and dynamic environment within which to create and build.
For instance, sound absorbers that were once unsellable have been reimagined as comfortable sofas. An oddly shaped table top has been dissected and reassembled into a new sofa table. Damaged supports taken from adjustable desks are combined with whiteboard pen holders and transformed into lamps. Jalousie cabinets have been turned into sculptural shelving, and so on. Each new object, imagined for use in the ‘Executives’ office, is a novel hybrid; a collage of latent potential pieced together by Nordberg's unprejudiced viewpoint.
Sofa made of partition walls, upholstered in Elmovegeta.
The Executive collection has been produced in close collaboration with skilled craftsmen at Soeco's workshops in Dalby outside Lund. Soeco which is a part of Yllw, which is part of the NO GA Group, shows in collaboration with Jenny Nordberg how they also can work as a producer and thereby taking the recycling industry to a new level.
Made from sound absorbing partition walls that comes in various designs and dimensions. The challenge here was to create furniture with minimal alterations to the partition walls, as they are difficult to cut. Only three cuts have been made in the sofa and one in the armchair. Otherwise, the dimensions of the different partition walls have dictated the shape of the sofa, giving it character with its protruding armrests. The upholstery is made of natural leather, chosen deliberately because it ages beautifully with use.
Reused partition walls in MDF, foam, and textile. Also reused inner cushions with down. Upholstered in vegetable-tanned leather without added pigments from Elmo.
A coffee table created using a tabletop with an unpopular shape as raw material. Angles of 45 and 90 degrees were chosen to simplify production. The surface has been painted and treated with charcoal and lacquer.
Reused tabletop in MDF and high-pressure laminate treated with carpentry lacquer, charcoal, and clear lacquer.
A large conference table that also functions as a dining or writing table. Several tabletops with varying defects and thicknesses have been joined together. Filler and sanding marks serve as decorative elements on the tabletop, which has been finished with a semitransparent coloured lacquer.
Reused tabletops treated with filler and lacquer paint.
Jalousie cabinets are difficult to sell on the second-hand market – perhaps due to their size and bulkiness, or because the jalousie mechanism tends to become stiff over time. They are easy to acquire but hard to dispose of. Can they be renewed to become desirable again? These cabinets have been repainted, and the roll-fronts have been replaced with doors made from leftover plywood from the carpentry shop. New handles and legs, sourced from old aluminum parts, have been installed.
Reused tambour cabinets, scrap pieces of pine plywood, reused aluminum trims from both whiteboards and partition walls. Lacquer paint and floor varnish.
During the creation of this series, a pile of leftover materials accumulated – someone accidentally wrote directly on a discarded plastic sheet, a lone door with an unusual shape, a black mdf board adorned with yellow text, and so on. Some of these pieces live on as spontaneous assemblages.
Scrap pieces of MDF and plastic, reused cabinet door, aluminum trim from a whiteboard, mounting adhesive.
One of the most challenging furniture components to repurpose is the leftover curved beams from the frames of height-adjustable desks. However, their shape has potential – especially when combined. This became the foundation for a 2.5-meter-wide metal composition. Together with six whiteboard pen holders repurposed as scattered lampshades and electrical fittings, they form a ceiling lamp.
Reused beams from height-adjustable desks, reused aluminum trims and pen holders from whiteboards, light fixtures.
