PLANK is known for producing distinctive furniture pieces with universal appeal. At Milan Furniture Fair 2014, we meet with PLANK’s General Manager, Michael Plank, who reveals some of the thinking behind the products. Alice Blackwood reports.
June 11th, 2014
PLANK may be best known for its angular Myto Chair by Konstantin Grcic. It’s an almost sculptural, yet highly functional and comfortable, stackable cantilever chair that, in many ways, represents PLANK’s vision for simplicity of production and design-led ideation.
A multi-generational family-owned company, PLANK was founded by General Manager Michael Plank’s great grandfather, a cabinet-maker, who kicked off the business in the 1950s thanks to a mass order for 150 chairs.
Current General Manager, Michael Plank, grew up in the company, working in the factory during his summer breaks. Before he’d even considered his future within PLANK, he was full engaged in business and design, studying interior and industrial design, as well as economics.
Bringing with him a new-think approach to design, Michael has shifted the emphasis off production and onto ideas. “Slowly our company has changed from a production intensive company to an ideas-led company,” he explains.
While Michael admits that PLANK inhabits a highly saturated furniture market, the brand has carved out a niche with a particular focus on products with purpose, cultural connections and distinctive aesthetics.
Maintaining a careful balance between inspired designs and commercially viable products is something which comes with experience, says Michael.
If one thinks of it as a line, he says, “then what is behind the line and goes to the world is very commercial. Everything over the line goes into museums.”
The perfect balance? “Getting as close to that line as possible with amazing, distinctive product that has a commercial outlook.”
On PLANK’s collaboration with design stars such as Grcic, Naoto Fukasawa and Ludovica + Roberto Palomba, he says: “As a company you have to have a brief, but we really try to role it into a dialogue with the designers [with whom we work].”
A fairly recently addition to the PLANK portfolio, the Miura table range – originally borne as a small bistro table designed by Grcic – has been extended to encompass a range of sizes.
Now catering for restaurant and outdoor situations, the Miura led the charge at the Milan Furniture Fair, in good company alongside its other counterparts the Monza, Miura stool and more.
Café Culture+Insitu
cafecultureinsitu.com.au
PLANK
plank.it
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Australia’s leading producer of solid-engineered oak flooring has recently launched a new suite of innovative resources to support creativity and ambition in the architecture and design community.
Join us behind the scenes with V-ZUG’s in-house design team, and discover how this Swiss boutique kitchen manufacturer balances art, science and history to create its pioneering Excellence line.
Living Edge definitely has the edge when it comes to supplying furniture for the education sector. With a plethora of brands and collections at their fingertips, Living Edge provides the perfect solution for any learning environment.
The workplace has changed – and it will continue to evolve. With dynamism at the heart of clients’ requirements, architects and designers at leading practices such as Elenberg Fraser are using and recommending Herman Miller’s OE1 products for the future workplace.
Once a kindergarten, now a Katinat Café in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, this project by Module K and Soulroom celebrates excellent design coupled with the love of coffee and eating out in a beautiful new contemporary space. It’s latte living at its best.
Studio SKLIM draws upon concepts of emptiness and negative space to optimise space in a micro café located along River Valley Road, Singapore.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
The Living Space category at the 2023 INDE.Awards showcases homes that are innovative, multi-detailed and beautifully resolved. This category affords the chance to explore what makes a house a perfect home and sets the bar high for residential design right across the Indo-Pacific region.
Functional and concise, the designs of Noom are an exercise in craft and artisanship. Composed of simple geometric shapes, each piece is made in the designers’ Ukraine workshop.
GH Commercial is now the exclusive flooring and carpet partner of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2023 – and two x double passes are up for grabs.
This shortlisted residential project channels the story of a house through decades of ownership by the same client. With sensitive touches and an ambitious overall design vision, Annandale Terrace by Sam Crawford Architects is a delightful home.