When it comes to locations associated with iconic furniture design, it’s probably fair to say that Newport in South Wales isn’t top of the list of places that spring to mind.
Furniture afficionados minds are more likely to drift to the west coast of America, where Charles and Ray Eames created their iconic work, or perhaps Paris - the home of Philippe Starck, or maybe Copenhagen, where the likes of Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner and Kaare Klint created era defining pieces of work. And closer to home in the 海角视频, it’s likely to be the furniture making hub of the Chilterns, home to Ercol.
However, it is in fact in Newport that one of our most iconic and enduring furniture icons is manufactured, boxed and delivered to all four corners of the globe.
The Bisley MultiDrawer was originally designed in 1958 and was awarded a coveted Design Guild Mark in 2017, recognised as the gold standard in design excellence for manufactured furniture, and held by the likes of designs from Terence Conran, deVOL and the aforementioned Ercol.
It was the rapid growth of colourful plastic lettertrays through the 1950s and 60s that became the inspiration for the original Bisley Multidrawer cabinets. Bisley founder Freddy Brown thought that he could produce a product which achieved the same storage capability but was more durable and make them available in a wide range of colours.
Compact, robust and versatile, the MultiDrawer was designed to fit any setting, from home offices to industrial workshops and everything in between. Even if you’re not consciously aware of the Bisley MultiDrawer, you’ve probably sat next to one at one time or another, and maybe even filed papers or stashed your lunch in one. They’ve been a mainstay of office life for as long as many of us can remember.
“Over the years the range of options has been increased and the manufacturing methods improved but the original appearance has remained unchanged, except these days it is available in an array of technicolour shades including bright yellows and oranges and rosy shades of pink - all favourites of interior designers and regularly seen gracing the pages of glossy magazines,” said, Bisley CEO.
“To date over two million MultiDrawers have been sold around the world and can be found in office locations, including Google, L’Oreal and Unilever. And most recently Bisley supplied a large number of MultiDrawers for the new BBC Cymru Wales HQ in Cardiff city centre.”
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All was going well until the world was turned on its head and the office became something of a nebulous concept for many of us as the pandemic has taken hold of all our lives.
It meant this British heritage firm had to rethink its plans, and in the words of its CEO “It’s been a bit of a wild ride”.
“At the start of the year before the pandemic took hold, we were producing over 15,000 items a week at our Newport factory and exporting to over 50 countries,” said Mr Costin.
“Our 2020 workflow and projects were planned and underway. And then Covid struck.
“It was immediately obvious that we were going to need to pivot and innovate, and fast. And so, while our factory was temporarily shuttered for the first time in memory, I asked four of Bisley’s in-house designers to propose ideas for products that would work well in a flexible home office scenario. I asked them to think, if they had free rein over new products within our steel and wood factories – that we could sell to our dealers, our on-line shop and to the domestic home worker, what would they be?
“Bisley has decades of design expertise in developing office furniture solutions and it was vital that we channelled all of that history, knowledge and expertise into developing a new collection that would help us endure the storm.
“I knew that this was the right approach as while our corporate order books had paused, we were witnessing a 300% spike in e-commerce sales as office workers looked to quickly set up home offices. The result is our new Belong Collection – a new range of office furniture designed with the evolving workspace in mind.”
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Mr Costin says the realisation of the collection is a proud moment for the firm.
Not only was the new collection put together in just three months – a process than normally takes years – but it is also the first time in a long time that the full process, from inception through to launch, has been conducted by an in-house design and production team located in Wales.
Among the collection is the Hideaway wall desk, a space-saving, wall mounted desk that folds down to provide a practical worksurface, as well as somewhere to store desk accessories.
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“In a nod to the heritage of the award-winning MultiDrawer, the new Belong collection features the MultiRange, a number of pieces that put the MultiDrawer at the centre of the design – including the MultiDesk – a customisable desk stacked neatly on top of a MultiDrawer that’s intended for compact spaces,” said Mr Costin.
“As for what’s next, well like tens of thousands of businesses across the country, and especially those in the manufacturing sector that we are a part of, there is a recognition that we must face this pandemic head on, and innovate intelligently, which in our case means to continue to meet the evolving needs and requirements of the office worker – whether that office is in an enterprise park, an urban skyscraper, a modular space, the spare bedroom or the sofa.”