Noorstad was born from a long lasting love for design and an urge to create something new and beautiful. It is all very much about making the furniture we would like for ourselves and to work in a way that makes sense to us. It is about being able to do what we love with people we like.

Noorstad is driven by our values. Beauty, creativity, courage, sustainability and sensuality are some of the things that are important to us. We want to let this guide us in design, in our choice of suppliers, partners and materials. From this we have defined three headlines for our work, and we have promised each other to consider these in everything we do: Natural, legible and local.

With Noorstad we aim for a new and simple understanding of home. A room for small moments of calm and bliss. It is about materials that appeal to the senses. Like the feeling of your favourite shirt or a pair of good leather shoes that will last forever.

We aim to make products of high quality with a timeless design in a challenge to the throw-away mentality. Our products are made to last and when finally they don´t last any more they can be taken to pieces and partly reused.

LEGIBLE

In Danish we have the word “enkelt”. It is the best word to describe our design philosophy. It is, however, difficult to translate the word ”enkelt” into English. It means more than simple or subdued and it has more warmth to it than minimal. It has a lot to do with reduction, a process of distillation, an output that is legible.

We aim for an aesthetic of simple, unobtrusive beauty. We also create with the intention of providing great comfort. To us legibility means a convergence of tactile comfort, essence of function and paired down design.

The Noorstad collection aims for a feeling of understated luxury and a clean and calm expression. Our design philosophy is all about making objects that are easy to relate to and which are not complicated by any unnecessary bling. To let the craftsmanship, the materials and their tactility speak for themselves.

LOCAL

All Noorstad products are locally produced – it is a deliberate choice.

”Made in Denmark” means made with skill and under proper conditions. It also means expensive. It simply costs more to produce in Denmark, but it seems like the only right thing to do if we are going to stand up for our values; caring for the environment, obtaining the best quality and making our suppliers good partners as well.

Local production makes sense to us in almost every way.

Denmark has skilled craftsmen and a long tradition of making furniture of the highest standards. When working locally we do not waste resources by transporting timber from the other side of the globe, manufacturing it here just to send it back overseas again. It also enables us to follow every step in the production, making sure that all producers are taking good care of employees, products and the environment. Most importantly we get to know our suppliers and whenever we face a problem we can meet over coffee and find new solutions together.

NATURAL

We work with natural materials and, whenever possible, we use natural finishes or none at all so each material reveals its unique character.

Douglas pine, for example, is perfect for soft, rounded shapes that show the beautiful patterns of its annual growth rings whereas dense oak timber calls for clean and more masculine shapes.

Natural materials most often age and patinate very beautifully and they tend to feel as good as they look. A carefully polished piece of wood, warm wool and cool aluminium all appeal to the senses in ways that plastic never will, and when treated right they will last you a lifetime.

The choice to work with local timber such as Oak, Beech and Douglas pine whenever possible means that we have restricted ourselves in some ways. We really like dark wood such as Walnut and Wengé but we do not have any dark wood species in Denmark. In our search for natural ways of darkening we discovered a modern version of an ancient technique. Back in the days, the Vikings used to scorch wet timber repeatedly over the fire to make it resistant to moisture and rot.

Today the exact same principle is called thermal modification. It proofs the wood and it also gives us exactly the dark brown tone that we were looking for.