4,795 Wooden Offcuts Turned into Bespoke Furniture

Peter Ebdrup was searching for the perfect barstool for the new Coffee Collective shop in Carlsberg Byen, Copenhagen. With wood on his mind, he entered the Dinesen Showroom to explore customising the Dinesen Collection Stool as a highchair. He left the showroom with a changed perspective, and another design for the coffee shop was taking shape. Today, Coffee Collective Carlsberg Byen features bespoke furniture designed by Design Studies, using Dinesen offcuts and Douglas Natural planks.

In 2022, a new Coffee Collective shop opened in Carlsberg Byen in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company, founded in 2007, sources coffee directly from farmers and roasts coffee locally in Copenhagen. All in the efforts to create the best coffee experiences in the world while helping and rewarding farmers for producing high- quality raw beans. In other words, Coffee Collective strives to impact the world positively.

The coffee shop in Carlsberg Byen – like the rest of the company’s shops – is designed to reflect the values embedded within Coffee Collective. To create a new shop, therefore, took thoughtful considerations. A mission, Peter Ebdrup, was assigned.

Peter is the origin coordinator and construction project manager at Coffee Collective. He oversees the trade with coffee partners abroad and grows the company by opening new shops around Copenhagen.

Coffee Collective is guided by positively impacting the climate and tries to incorporate that when building new coffee shops, as well as mirroring the quality of the company's products in the shop design. Peter incorporated recycled materials and upcycling techniques into the design process to achieve this goal.

The coffee shop nestles in Pasteur’s Tower – a 2022 building, towering up 120 meters, overlooking the beautiful and historic garden by J.C. Jacobsen. The tower is strikingly contrasting with the historic brick buildings surrounding it. However, its colour, materiality and matte surface blend well with the neighbourhood, contributing to the larger whole.

Peter considered the rustic, high-ceilinged, concrete space and envisioned a pleasant place to work, to relax and enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee. He opted for responsible, sustainable solutions and created a space with seaweed wool covering the walls and soft-polished clay tiles in earthy tones that benefit the acoustics and reduce dust accumulation.

Peter consulted Design Studies (DS) to create a bespoke furniture collection to soften the concrete space. The design company and Coffee Collective shared the same values and perspective on design and concluded that the expression had to differ from the other shops. The earthy tones in the tiles were to be supported with wood.

DS looked to Dinesen for the highest quality wood with the smallest carbon footprint, and the leftover wood accumulated from the production of floor planks inspired the furniture design. The offcuts from Dinesen Douglas wood became the building blocks for the chairs, bar stools, tables and even a large-scale bookcase in the coffee shop.

The job was a perfect opportunity for DS to design and study simultaneously. It was a process of learning while developing products from innovative thinking. The project allowed DS to create sustainably with curiosity as the focal point.

The final product thus fulfils the purpose of longevity and recycling as it is crafted from untreated, leftover wood. DS carefully limited the use of screws and glue to make the design flexible and reusable. So, if the Coffee Collective shop in Carlsberg Byen ever gets repurposed, its furniture can be dismantled, and the 4,795 wooden offcuts pieces reused.