Hot on the heels of its first anniversary, TAKT – the Danish furniture brand known for its timeless Scandinavian aesthetic and accessible, sustainable business model – has collaborated with one of the country’s leading designers, Cecilie Manz, to release Plint. This beautifully crafted wooden coffee table, with vegetable-tanned leather hinges and a delightfully simple self-assembly mechanism, will be available to order at taktcph.com in October.
The new Plint coffee table by Cecilie Manz for TAKT in Oregon Pine finish. Photograph by Mikkel Mortensen.
Manz’s first design for TAKT, the Plint Coffee Table joins the brand’s existing collection of flatpack chairs, tables, benches and stools. It introduces new functionality to the range, while embodying TAKT’s characteristic material focus on sustainable woods, timeless Scandinavian simplicity, easy assembly and attention to detail.
Plint also shares TAKT’s emphasis on versatility. The rectangular table is the size and shape to feature in any room of the home: as a regular coffee table in front of the sofa; as a side table positioned against the wall or beneath a window; or as a platform to stack books and papers.
Plint by Cecilie Manz for TAKT demonstrates modern versatility and timeless Scandinavian simplicity. Photography by Mikkel Mortensen.
A perfect partnership
Plint is the result of a collaboration between one of Denmark’s best-established design talents and its most exciting emerging start-up. A multiple award-winning industrial designer, Cecilie Manz has worked with some of the leading names in contemporary furniture and product design, including Fredericia Furniture, Duravit, Muuto and B&O. Now, she joins the likes of Pearson Lloyd, Rasmus Palmgren, Thomas Bentzen and Sam Hecht-and-Kim Colin in TAKT’s hand-picked family of
designers producing ‘Danish design with a global outlook’.
“We subscribe to classic Danish design virtues: a focus on functionality, honest and natural materials, reduced ornamentation while still retaining personality. Cecilie Manz has this amazing touch to her designs – a paredback aesthetic that doesn’t shout but has this strong personality, presence and atmosphere.”
– Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, Founder & CEO at TAKT
Manz’s prototype was developed for Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling – the highly regarded Danish Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition – in 2019. In the months since, the design has been through many further iterations to ensure it meets TAKT’s ecodesign and rigorous production standards. Now, Plint is ready to be introduced to homes around the world.
Plint is designed to be shipped flatpack to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions, as well as creating cost savings for the customer. Photograph by Victor Neumann.
Cecilie Manz’s ingenious solution reduces the table to just two components: tabletop and apron. The tabletop is attached to the legs with leather hinges. The apron is fitted with a leather loop that is fed through an aperture in the supports and fixed in place with an octagonal wedge. This allows the table to be cost-effectively shipped in a narrow, completely flat package, and to be quickly assembled with ease: no need for glue, bolts or screws.
“A small plinth is a type of furniture I often return to, as it’s highly functional and self-explanatory to use. Leather as a hinging material is something I’ve been exploring a lot over the past 10 years – it’s interesting to use an ordinary but genuine material such as full-grain leather where it makes functional sense to do so – as little as possible in the right place.”
– Cecilie Manz, designer of Plint for TAKT
The tabletop and the side pieces are cut from a single piece of hand-selected timber, which gives a fluid pattern of grain, interrupted only by the leather hinge – this allows it to fold flat as a continuous plank of wood. The wedge connection – a mechanism reminiscent of the ‘pegged stretcher’ joinery method sometimes found in traditional dining tables – is finely crafted to ensure the connection is secure and the assembled structure is stable and robust.
Plint’s charm is a combination of elegant design by Cecilie Manz and exquisite production by TAKT. Photography by Victor Neumann
Honest materiality
Plint is crafted from two principal materials: wood and leather.
As with all TAKT products that feature leather, Plint is made using high-quality hides produced using a chrome-free tanning process. The leather is sourced from the small Swedish tannery Tärnsjö Garveri, one of the few tanning houses which still practises environmentally conscious vegetable tanning (using bark extracts) as opposed to the time-efficient but more polluting chrome-based technique popular with many furniture manufacturers.
Three wood options are available: Oregon Pine, Kalmar Pine and Oak, each of which has a different aesthetic effect. Oregon Pine has a precise and regular grain structure and a warm golden glow. Slow-grown Kalmar Pine from Swedish forests has a soft, bright look and a beautiful grain pattern. The Oak version is darker, and more rustic in appearance.
Plint is available in three finishes, from left; Oak, Oregon Pine and Kalmar Pine. All TAKT wood is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Photography by Victor Neumann.
The tabletop and side pieces are from a single, flawless piece, which must be handselected and then cut precisely from logs to create the desired surface texture and grain. The finished planks are then machined to ensure the highest possible degree of precision before the leather components are fixed into place.
Styled photography by Mikkel Mortensen.
Cut-out photography by Victor Neumann.
Plint dimensions
H35cm x L120cm x W32cm