Project Overview

The Gen Y is a cheeky modern take on the traditional Scandanavian inspired sideboard, that features changable doors in a multitude of design choices....

The doors can be removed and changed easily and quickly and storage for a spare pair of doors in concealed underneath the main unit....

Organisation

Old School Industries

Team

Brett Webb/ Sascha Laurenson

Project Brief

We were motivated to create a piece of furniture that was not only immensely practical but also had a visible personality.. We have a strong love of Scandanavian design and it was essential that this was reflected in the body of our work however of greatest importance was to inject a sense of joy and fun....

A sideboard was a logical choice for us... The practicality of the piece is undeniable; everybody needs a simple storage unit somewhere in their home, and it was a great piece for us to pay homage to great Scandanavian designers who have inspired so much of our work over the last decade....

To accomodate for peoples' ever changing taste we have created a door system that is easy to remove and change, with storage available in the base of the unit... We are constantly updating and changing our door design catalogue and aim to have a variety of graphic styles represented so that most people will be able to find a door set that best represents them and their unique interior flavour....

Project Innovation / Need

We've created a user friendly changeable door system... Our doors can be removed in seconds and new doors fitted and locked in place with ease.. We believe that our door locking device is the first of it's kind...

The collection of graphic designs that feature on our doors ranges from the quirky and irreverent to highly sophisticated, allowing people to have a piece of furniture that is constantly adapting to their changing moods or style ideas....

Design Challenge

There were multiple challenges faced in getting the Gen Y sideboard past the prototyping stage.... The main issues were finding a suitable medium for sealing our designs to our doors and sourcing ethically produced and recycled materials for our construction...

Another great challenge was resolving how to have doors that could be removed and replace easily but did not fall out of the tracking... We have engineered a small, easy to use locking device on the back of every door to overcome this potential stumbling block...

There was 12 months of constant product testing before we considered our design and manufacturing processes resolved....

Sustainability

We consider ourselves to be ethical people and it was essential that this was reflected in any products we make...

Where possible, we source locally, from our own regional community if possible... Most of our timber understructures are milled from local fallen trees..

Other materials are recycled where possible... We used waste products and products made from reclaimed timber in the construction of our sideboards...

We support other Australian businesses as much as possible... It's our way of "paying it forward".....