The Skovby #33 table: a multifunctional innovation for uncompromising good design

The #33 table by Skovby will be featured in the exhibition THIS IS DENMARK hosted by Alcova at the Milan Design Week 2023 

Good design is about aesthetics, quality materials and smoothless functionality. Sometimes it manifests itself in a new interpretation of a gesture, or a habit. Sometimes in a brilliant insight leading to ironical or smart solutions. And sometimes, talking about the Danish brand Skovby, good design is about a witty and clever invention pragmatically focusing on multifunctional use. 

Per Hånsbæk has been the leading designer at Skovby for the last thirty years. He set his work in the path of the historical Danish brand: high quality natural materials, simple forms, good craftsmanship. His intuition moreover pushed the company towards a new, strong idea of what design becomes when it integrates a high standard invention for flexibility and a multifunctional mindset. 

A table that blooms in multifunctionality

The round #33 table is the result of this ingenious attitude: a linear and essential dining table that extends its capacity thanks to a smart, elegant and smooth procedure. 

Just turn a plate under the top and the table opens like a flower in three directions making room for nine people. Sometimes design becomes poetry, addressing very common problems and transforming them in beautiful and simple gestures.

Behind this patented invention there is obviously a company. 

Skovby was founded ninety years ago by cabinet maker Thorwald Rasmussen. After him, his son and his nephews continued his work, as it often happens in many Danish brands. Companies are family businesses, managed with clear values driven strategies.

Sustainability, both in its environmental and human meaning, are Skovby strongholds reflecting in each product. 

Human and environmental sustainability 

The respect for quality craftsmanship along with the integration of robotic technology made Skovby an international hi-tech company with a positive environmental footprint. The furniture is produced by natural materials, handpicked, and chosen with consideration and respect.

Wood comes only from sustainable forests of Europe and North America, where for every tree harvested another is planted. Skovby reuses surplus wood chips and shavings for heating their premises. Carbon positivity, although an ambitious goal, is not faraway. 

In Galten close to Aarhus, where the Skovby production plant is based, the raw material is transformed into the finished product in one unique place, avoiding complex and useless logistics.

Cabinetmakers, technicians and the design department work together to maintain the Danish design tradition alive while uncompromisingly according the industrial and handmade process to the contemporary needs of the end users. 

This is Denmark exhibition, staged at Alcova during the Milan Design Week 2023, wishes to offer an overview, through 15 selected objects, of how contemporary Danish creators and companies interpret today the key values coming from their national heritage.