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INNOVATION C
Innovation C – The year was 2001, and for a change, Konstfack’s masters’
students had been given a reality-based school assignment, namely to design furniture
for an airport in a project called Arlanda Pir F.
The students were given an introduction to the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration
and its manual, which clearly prescribes the shape and design of airport furniture.
Fredrik Mattson threw the manual away and instead went to Arlanda to study
travellers and their behaviour. He gathered information such as the airport’s costs per
square metre, who travels by air, the equipment and tools used and what travellers
require in the form of furniture. He quickly came up with a table top, seat, backrest
and armrests.
Fredrik minimised the functions and combined them in a piece of furniture that met all
requirements. Its shape was aerodynamic and reminiscent of an aircraft wing.
When we saw the prototype at the student exhibition that same year, we understood
immediately that this was a new way of relating to function and interior in symbiosis
with today’s technological society and behaviour. Without really being aware
of it himself, Fredrik had created one of the frst modern, multifunctional pieces of
furniture on the market which genuinely flled the gap between new technologies and
traditional furniture.
We instinctively knew that it didn’t matter if it turned out to be before its time and its
public. Innovation C was already – and still is – a necessary product, a statement of
our times.
Design: Fredrik Mattson
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