Hasta La Ideas

Left: Knauf and Brown’s Floor Coaster. Right: early prototypes of the rolling table

Die-hard auto enthusiasts swear by manual transmissions, not only for the gas mileage but also for the sensation of being in fuller control of the car. It’s an appreciation fostered by active participation and intentional use—an appreciation that the design studio Knauf and Brown (whom we recently profiled along with two fellow Cana-designers) wants to foster in household objects through its new Standard Collection.

“If you ask someone why they drive a standard instead of an automatic, the answer is usually related to enjoying the act of driving,” says D Calen Knauf, one half of the Vancouver-based studio. “You’re using your hands, you’re using your mind more, you have to make decisions, and those elements bleed into this collection.” Perhaps the most notable object in the collection, which debuted at Sight Unseen OFFSITE during New York Design Week, is the Standard Floor Coaster, a petite rolling platform that looks sort of like a cross between a coffee table and a curling stone.

Knauf made an early, makeshift version of the table during his freshman year at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, in Vancouver. It was born out of the very real need for a small, movable table that wouldn’t be toppled by his swiveling armchair. “It was just a block of wood with a notch cut out of it, so that it was easy to grab, and a rounded bottom edge to allow it to drag on the carpet easily,” Knauf says. “People would sit on it at parties and it would break. Every time, it would take like a week or so to fix it, and I’d realize how much a part of my life it was.”

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