7. The Pipe Dreams collection by Douglas & Company makes magic from basic materials

Douglas & Company’s new Pipe Dreams collection uses leftover materials to create a capsule range of furniture that skilfully blends clean-lined practicality with a strong sense of reverie.

Asits name suggests, the new Douglas & Company range – which includes a daybed, a bench and a stool – evokes daydreams and feelings of abstraction. “Conceiving of and launching a new collection amid omnipresent uncertainty felt like a fanciful scheme at first,” says Liani Douglas, one half of the design duo. “But we decided to banish our current state of limbo in favour of a previously unimaginable new reality that is revealing itself. The pure geometric assembly and plump curves of the collection evoke a dreamlike, playful state – fitting for a not-so-fleeting daydream.”

Materially, the dreams are manifested in cross-laminated timber (CLT) and high-density chip foam, beautifully offset by touches of blush-pink leather. The materials used give a nod to repurposing too – the CLT was surplus from a recent construction project, and chip foam is made up of pieces of scrap foam that are chipped and bonded together.

Furthermore, CLT as a material is made of high-pressure bonded 20-40mm timber boards in perpendicular layers, which gives incredible stability and structural capacity to the coniferous softwoods used for the panels. This layered fabrication process inspired the form and construction of the Pipe Dreams pieces. Simple geometric shapes are built up by stacking uniform disks of wood and foam, and these are left exposed to demonstrate the material strata.

Design and architecture studio Douglas & Company has long been a VISI favourite: we featured Liani and Jan Douglas’s Green Point home in VISI 108, and have always admired their thoughtful, conceptual take on product design, which has been in evidence from the start. From smaller items such as the Die Blaker candleholder and

Die Regterhand standing lamps (both sadly no longer in production) to the glamour and verve of their take on the server trolley, McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, their approach consistently combines aesthetic and intellectual appeal.

Following its launch at Cape Town gallery THEFOURTH, the Pipe Dreams collection is available to order from the Douglas & Company website, with the exception of the Air Castle foam stool, which is a one-off item. douglasandco.co.za | ___thefourth___