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For its latest product, Swedish design studio Kauppi & Kauppi, founded by Johan and Nina Kauppi, used the sun as its main source of inspiration. GreenFrame, designed by Johan Kauppi for Glimakra of Sweden (a Swedish wood manufacturing company) and launched at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2018, is a floor screen divider kitted out with potted plants and an integrated lighting system. By replicating sunlight, the wooden structure has been manufactured with the sole intention of making the workplace a happier environment.
Drawing on the idea that not everyone is able to work next to a window – let alone a window filled with plants, GreenFrame functions as an ideal solution in allowing greenery and light to play a prominent role in office wellbeing.
As employers and architects alike revise strategies to design with wellbeing at the core – in the sense of making ample use of space, natural airflow and light – this means that the office has increasingly become a place where workers actually enjoy spending their time.
Yet sometimes, natural light isn’t enough – particularly in regions such as Scandinavia, where fewer hours of daylight are available during the dark half of the year. In these locations, there is a serious need for light support – for both people and plants. But who would have thought a simple screen could be a radiant green oasis?
The solid wood frame is intricately manufactured with the intention of contributing to a better indoor climate – and is suitable for workspaces, offices, lounges and other public spaces. It comes in the form of solid ash wood, created through advanced CNC milling with the integrated luminaire power cables and adapter hidden in the frame itself.
Not only is the technology discreet, and part of the trend of hidden technologies throughout the industry, but the frame also has various other purposes, acting as a room divider, light fixture, acoustic sound absorber and charming piece of green furniture.
Johan Kauppi, designer at Kauppi & Kauppi, explains: “I wanted to investigate how much a floor screen could be simplified. When everything except the naked elegant wood frame was reduced, I became interested in seeing what it could be filled with. I often long for the forest and have a beautiful Norfolk pine next to my desk, always making me happy. I thought, perhaps my plants could fit in the frame?”
He adds: “Glimakra of Sweden, which has great knowledge of wood production, did an amazing job when they managed to integrate the lighting in the top of the frame, and concealed all electrical components in the frame itself.”
Kauppi continues. “The result is a stripped and restrained furniture in solid wood – a mixture of a room divider, green furniture and light fixture.”
Swedish design studio Kauppi & Kauppi’s GreenFrame is a wooden plant holder and room divider which can replicate daylight indoors in the Scandinavian winter – or in a dark corner of the office
