WCFM Manchester Student Tour 2011
4th April - 7th April 2011
KInnarps Sponsor and Host the 2nd Annual Tour
During April, 32 students from 14 educational centres across the country, reaching as far as Edinburgh to Plymouth were based at the Sachas Hotel, Manchester to explore the furniture industry in the local area. This was part of the annual Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers (WCFM) Manchester student Tour.
The tour was led by the Student training chairman – Chris Hyde who said, “It is a pleasure to give the next generation of furniture designers and makers an insight into the furniture world and all its opportunities.”
The first day was at Kinnarps Workplace Furniture on Tuesday 5 April, where a design competition was held for ‘homeworker’ furniture for the home office. The students saw and examined Kinnarps products and then presented initial ideas to their peers and the judges, consisting of :-
Marc Bird, Head of Marketing, Kinnarps
Thomas White, Senior Creative Designer, Kinnarps
Levent Cagler, Senior Consultant Ergonomist and Head of Ergonomics Unit, FIRA
Colin Morrell from the student training committee
All of the Judges found the Student presentations very interesting and were overwhelmed with the ideas displayed to them. It was a hard choice narrowing the winning design down, which led to there being an overall winner, plus 4 commendations on the day!
The overall winning design was a ‘winged table’ by Ben Croft, Oxford and Cherwell Valley College. Ben’s prize will be a visit to the Kinnarps Factory in Kinnarp, Sweden with Alex Gifford, Head of Design Kinnarps UK and Product Development Team Kinnarps AB.
From left to right: Tom White, Colin Merrell, Ben Croft, Marc Bird and Levent Cagler
Winner Ben commented: "There were so many good designs presented i was shocked when i found out i had won a trip to sweden. I'm so excited this is such a great opportunity, thankyou Kinnarps."
Ben Croft's Winning Design - The Winged Table.
The highly commended designs
Alex Hopkins and Sam Aston of Chichester College for their process of design
Adam Cave Ayland of Wolverhampton University for his innovation of storage
Aleksandra Mirecka and Marjan Van Aubel of the Royal College of Art for their design research
Sarah Arrowsmith of Plymouth University for a creative steam bent design
commended designs
"Spending a day with Kinnarps really inspired the students to think about the 'why' of furniture design. It was a great day and the students go alot out of it". Chris Hyde, Chairman, Student training Company.
Students also got to visit Vitafoam and Knightsbridge Furniture throughout the following days of this tour.