Softline is a modern upholstered furniture company founded in Denmark in 1979, at the time one of the country’s leading manufacturers of polyurethane foam for the furniture industry. In the 1980s, the company began to create its own furniture, today distributed worldwide. With its factory in Maribo, Softline strives to maintain the Scandinavian style of its origins. The new direction in furniture production coincided with collaboration with designer Kurt Brandt, author of the Pax sofa bed that offers the possibility of changing configurations in a single movement. This project earned exceptional market success in Denmark.
Soft line
National growth in the 1980s and 1990s was followed by the brand's introduction onto European markets, particularly Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and the Benelux countries, with even more growth in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. After Kurt Brandt's death in 1997, Sofline began working with such international designers as busk+hertzog, Karim Rashid, Hiromichi Konno, Thomas Müller, Nanna Ditzel, Stine Engelbrechtsen and others. The brand's furniture collection includes sofas, sofa beds, armchairs, tables, chairs and cushions, all designed with modularity, flexibility and comfort in mind, paying particular attention to workplace needs. Today Sofline employs approximately seventy people and collaborates with over fifteen designers.
The idea of offering furniture that can be combined and used in different ways with unique, integrated functions is well-represented by the Noomi Swivel Chair, designed in 2013 by Susanne Grønlund. The designer didn't only want to create an eye-catching piece, but also wanted to focus on function. While everyone wants to sit comfortably, the ability to swivel a seat allows users to move closer or further away. The Noomi chair stands on a 360-degree swivel base that moves in a fluid and relaxed way. Similarly, the Tuck Sleeper Sofa (Thomas Müller and Jörg Wulff, 2013) functions as a sofa, bed and even as a chaise longue thanks to its ability to extend to an intermediate dimension between sofa and bed; the narrow armrests maximise seating and bed width. The same concept applies to the Twilight Sleeper Sofa (1999), a hybrid piece of furniture that can be used as a sofa, a sofa bed, a double bed, or two twin beds. Compact and well-sized, Twilight distils the concept of the convertible sofa into a simple piece of furniture consisting of a cylinder and a rectangle. The adjustable cushion allows the seat depth and lumbar support to be adjusted according to personal needs.
A Softline összes berendezésére jellemző "életöröm" a márka irodai és közületi berendezéseiben is tükröződik. A Drum Pouff (2009) egy funkcionális és kényelmes bútordarabot alkotott, amely különböző kontextusokban és különböző célokra használható. Ülőhelyként vagy puffként szolgáló Drum Pouff könnyen mozgatható; a tálca hozzáadásával kis asztallá alakítható. A Vera társalgószék (2007, busk+hertzog) négy vonal által meghatározott lágy, kerek formájával szintén azt a vágyat kelti, hogy egy barátságos és vonzó tárggyal egy kényelmes munkakörnyezetet teremt. Az ülés és a háttámla optikailag hat különálló területre oszlik, amelyek kontrasztban állnak a szék testét alkotó kerek, organikus felülettel. Az elegáns forgó talapzat a szék nagyvonalú és kényelmes méretei ellenére könnyűnek tűnik.