The industrial tour facilitated by the young furniture makers really should be renamed the luxury tour.

Thanks to the sponsors of the trip, the furniture companies and factories who are the main financial contributors, also giving up their time and offering of expertise and advise for our future careers.

What an opportunity for us all, firstly it was like a well-earned luxury holiday because of the chosen hotel in Bolton, The Last Drop Hotel and Spa, ( thank you ) the huge bonus we all agreed is being with like-minded people with similar goals.

As a group of students, we were all on design courses mainly specialising in furniture design, however, that’s where the commonality halted ( although I did find my fellow cycling buddy who I could happily talk bikes and Alpe passes to.) Because of the differences, the conversation was interesting and diverse, swapping tales of university experiences, courses and often technical discussion of materials, machinery and the link to software design and hands-on designer maker.

A solid group of us enjoyed the facilities at the hotel, starting the day in the swimming pool and the outdoor thermal pool of which overlooking the Pennies, always a bleak but beautiful sight.
Early start for breakfast with ample strong coffee to set us up for the day ahead…

My first day started at the Last Drop Hotel in Bolton (just outside of Manchester), a longish coach drive took us to our first destination the Furniture Village.

As future designers, it was a great opportunity to poke our noses behind the scenes of a big commercial furniture company.
I was really impressed with the transparency of our host when talking about the company values and ethics.

Our host discussed the Furniture villages customer-centric business model and how that had recently had an influence on the change of signage, store layout and the way they as a company choose to allocate their marketing budget, because of their customer focus they seem to have a forward-thinking approach which keeps their products current and in line with what their customers want.
The furniture village aims to provide high-quality home furnishings at prices their customers can afford, backed up with price match incentives.

The insight into the marketing into their business and what their customers wanted was immensely valuable to us as designers. At Leeds Beckett, we often work with a brief set by those in industry, collaborations like these I believe are what makes designs that are tangible to manufacture.

Some of the additions to furniture design were USB charging ports and movement. I love people watching and sure enough, the furniture in the store that was getting the most affection were the chairs that had lifting leg rests, span round to change position and view and a table that was designed using a bike chain as a movable part.

Other really interesting stuff:
All the leather comes from meat consumed as food.
How Brexit may have a positive effect on furniture delivery times.
and most importantly! home-baked cookies and hot drinks in store.

Our second visit was to a factory specializing in foam manufacture for upholstering.

Vitafoam is a pretty impressive place as its product polyurethane foam is key to the manufacture of furniture in the UK.
Polyurethane foam has been used to upholster furniture since the 1960’s Vitafoam is an alternative to natural fibres such as hemp, wool and flax, and a preferred material for upholstery in places such as hospitals.

Our guide informed us all about the different qualities, densities and grades of foam this was communicated in the form of numbers visible on the foam ready to export.
Different buyers of the foam choose the quality of foam they need relating to its use, for example, one of there main exports is to children’s skate parks, to fill the pits that the skaters fall in to after completing a ramp or trick, later in the tour we got to see how the foam was used in manufacture at Knightsbridge for use in high-quality commercial upholstered furniture.
The factory has a pretty impressive CNC department, this means the foam can be cut and shaped to the bespoke needs of individual furniture manufacture and distributed, ready to use.

Day2: A trip to the spa at The Last Drop Hotel for a swim and to watch the sun rise over the Pennines, honestly just stunning! A hearty breakfast then an expertly driven coach journey for us all into Leeds.

Our destination; Harrison Spinks, established in 1840 and is a fifth-generation family business. Our tour guide was Dan a direct descendant of the founder.

The thing that struck me most about Harrison Spinks is their approach to innovation, it’s very inspiring! Adopting a vertical design approach (check out their story https://www.harrisonspinks.co.uk/story)

Their success in innovating unique spring technology has set them apart from any other bed company worldwide, however, it seems to me, so much more than the innovation partnered with the vertical design model that makes Harrison Spinks the go too for a luxurious nights sleep.

Harrison Spinks and the companies approach to sustainability; closed loop design partnered with vertical design has prompted the purchase of a working farm to provide much of the hemp and other natural materials needed for the natural fibres used in the matrasses, it’s innovations like this that I believe is the USP of Harrison Spinks, because not only are there matresses beggingly inviting and a pretty much guaranteed to give you the best nights sleep ever! The real beauty sleep for me is in the story, look at the link included.
Fabulous Lunch! Thank you.

Road trip to CDUK
CDUK LTD distributes the solid surface material DuPont™ Corian® to a network of trained fabricators across the UK. Corian® is the original solid surface material.
Corian is right up my street as a designer interested in sustainable materials, Corian is made from waste materials from the Bauxite process that otherwise would end up as unused waste (landfill).

Corian was brought to the UK as the original solid surface material primarily to be used in kitchens and bathrooms surfaces.
The portfolio of uses for Corian is growing, I think this is the outlook of CDUK LTD and the team’s creativity, their initiatives to train and share with like-minded creatives and students like us.
Some of the uses so far are cladding for buildings; furniture, for the home and outside, and far more. http://www.cdukltd.co.uk/gallery.php?p=gallery&s=corian
The material is warm to the touch, it feels tactile and organic.
Corian comes in flat sheet form and is light in weight, but strong with some flex when backlit with LED light Corian is transparent. Partner the qualities of strength, transparency with manufacturing technique CNC and the pattern options are endless and stunning!
I can’t wait until my training course.
Thank you all so much for an educational, hands-on and inspiring afternoon.

23 students like kids in a sweatshop!

The night before we had an early dinner and most of us opted for the spa post-dinner, [not the public house] the focus was to keep a clear head for the visit to Knightsbridge furniture makers in Bradford.

The coach journey in the morning was interesting, as the coach took us through what would have been some very affluent areas in its heyday when the textile industry of Bradford was in full flow.

Bradford is going through a massive regeneration, the old factories and warehouses making the perfect modern apartments.

Stepping into the showroom of Knightsbridge was like being in one of those plush apartments.
The big open plan room, high ceilings and big windows work perfectly with the modern furniture that was laid out before us.
The best bit!
We were all encouraged to move around experience, sit-on and inspect the furniture.
The workmanship of the pieces was just incredible and reflected in the pride of their designers and the workforce that supports the manufacture of the furniture.

Jason Brown, development director was our group’s guide.
My personal interests are how business and products are made sustainable and ethically and remain commercially viable, Jason Brown was the perfect person to show us around as Jason genuinely cares and is passionate about the impact that product build has on the environment and the balance that has to be found when seeing a design through to manufacture.

All the wood is FCA, the purchase of the wood is calculated to maximise quality, my favourite bit was how the manufacturing process uses waste wood as fuel for heat and power which operates much of the machinery.

The Machinery: Jason and the team are clever fello’s!
As we were shown around the factory where all the pieces of the furniture where made, I was astounded at the can-do attitude, the innovation into manufacture and the new, or adapted machinery so a new part of furniture could be produced.
I really enjoyed the overflowing enthusiasm from Jason to have a go at adapting, and making new manufacturing processes to produce new innovation, this style of innovation is something I love doing myself.

There was so much more to our tour I genuinely could write a book about it!
I enjoyed seeing the whole process; design, prototyping, manufacture from a lump of wood to precise manufacture and high-quality finishing and polishing techniques, application of foam (from Vitafoam) and the upholstery techniques that give the important finishing touches.

Our tour ended back in the spectacular showroom and a right spread of a lunch, Thank you.

Throughout the week, we were treated like royalty.
A massive Thank you to Damilola Bamidele, Grants and Education Manager at The Furniture Makers’ Company, for all your hard work.