Plural Studios, an independent and family-owned commercial furniture brand, enters the North American furniture market with the launch of its website, pluralstudios.com. The company, cofounded by mother-son duo, Barbara and Anthony Brandt, who have a combined experience of 30-plus years in all aspects of contract furniture sales with all the major manufacturers — features innovative new commercial furniture solutions made in America for healthcare, corporate, hospitality, and market-defying applications.
“We wanted to do it differently, and we wanted to create a company offering a meaningful, more human experience for our customers, our staff, and our vendor partners,” said Barbara Brandt, cofounder of Plural Studios. “From the beginning, we believed that doing the right thing for all involved would create a satisfying and sustainable company.” The duo intentionally sought to partner with like-minded people. “Their generous sharing of knowledge has increased our understanding and capabilities,” she said. “Hence the name Plural, because it truly takes more than one.”
Brandt explained that the company consciously seeks to provide an experience that increases the health, comfort, creative expression, and growth of every single person engaged with the products — from those making pieces to those utilizing them. “Originally from the Pacific Northwest and now enjoying living in Arizona, we have a profound respect for nature and all it provides,” she said. “We are responsible for ensuring that everything we do protects and benefits our environment.”
Anthony Brandt explained that the idea for Plural actually came from looking at what makes the furniture industry incredibly dynamic, and that they wanted to build a company focused not just on furniture but how the furniture impacts the environment and the people it serves. “Plural is made up of multiple different teams across the US that came together to make healthy spaces beautiful,” he said. “From an emotive finish palette to approachable design, we want to make a difference in the emotional wellbeing of the users.”
According to the company’s website, Plural’s products are made-by-hand to exceed expectations for design, quality, comfort, value, and on-time delivery. Plural also defines the versatility and multifunctional use of its products throughout a wide variety of commercial spaces, from healthcare and hospitality to corporate, retail, and beyond. Its basic aim is to provide adaptable furniture solutions that make a positive impact on the economy and society at large. As a family-owned business that still builds its products by hand in America, the company’s culture, integrity, and relationships guide its every decision.
Sustainability is Paramount
As a major initiative, Plural continually explores new ways to build sustainability into processes and products. The company bases its business culture on steadfast principles and believes sustainability requires more than third-party certifications, and has pledged a holistic approach that encompasses waste elimination, reduced reliance on limited resources, assurance of the safety and wellbeing of the individuals building and using its furniture, and extended life cycles for all products. Aside from designing and producing incredibly durable furniture that can be repurposed for more than one lifecycle, Plural is offering the Avila collection with removable/field-replaceable upholstery covers as a standard feature at no upcharge, thereby extending the life of its furniture for many years.
The company is also partnering with One Tree Planted, which plants one tree for each product they sell, resulting in thousands of new trees each year. In its Pacific Northwest manufacturing hub, there are critical forested areas the company is helping restore by reducing water contamination, lowering toxicity, protecting salmon spawning grounds, and improving the food supply for many species of wildlife — as well as the communities in the surrounding areas.
Finally, rather than sending its leftover remnants to the landfill, Plural supplies Pipeline Worldwide with textiles to produce tote bags. The non-profit organization sells these beautiful bags on their website to provide funding and resources for projects that deliver access to clean water, sanitation, education, and healthcare in East Africa’s most impoverished regions. In addition, Plural’s founding partner, Anthony Brandt, serves on the Pipeline board of directors. “We’re also excited to be working on some amazing wood and foam alternatives that we believe will be industry game-changers,” noted Barbara Brandt when discussing future endeavors.
Healthcare Furniture Designed by Brian Graham
Pluralstudios.com also represents the launch of the company’s inaugural collection of healthcare furniture, Avila, a highly adaptable seating system designed by industry veteran Brian Graham. Anthony Brandt was a huge fan of Brian’s.“I was a fanboy of his products and his approach to design,” he said. Barbara Brandt had been starstruck by Laura Guido-Clark since her early days at Deepa Textiles. “It started with meeting Brian at NeoCon in 2018, and then lunch together in San Francisco,” Barbara explained, who said he was incredibly open and shared his time and advice.
A while later they approached him about designing a line of healthcare furniture and he agreed. “Brian introduced us to Laura which, for me, was a pinnacle life event,” Barbara explained. “Both Brian and Laura have been instrumental in the development of Plural, generously investing the knowledge and creative expertise we needed to become what Plural is today.” In December of 2020 at the height of the pandemic, the Brandts had this idea to really go out on a limb and address the lack of attractive healthcare products.
For the Avila series, Plural challenged Graham to reconsider typical industry archetypes and consider how his elegant integration of form and function could inform a refreshing and empathetic approach to healthcare seating solutions. “I feel the time was right to introduce a tailored, modern sensibility to healthcare furniture,” said Graham, who believes the healthcare sector is ripe for a more sophisticated, modern visual expression.
“It was important to me that the design embodied a sense of dignity and humanity,” he said. “I strove to create a piece of furniture that, upon first glance, would convey an appealing presence with a sense of inherent comfort. Using my background as an interior designer, we developed a broad range of materials and finishes that would allow the design to be specified in different ways on the same project.”
Graham explained that he takes all that deep experience of working with other important contract furniture manufacturers over the years and applies it to a new problem. The challenge here was the problem was exceedingly well defined, so he decided to embrace an “experienced naiveté” approach. “I needed to be open and observant and let the process of seeking to understand the problems drive me towards the correct solutions,” he said. “Oftentimes that doesn’t happen on the first pass. It takes iteration upon iteration. That’s why we make lots of prototypes, test, refine, and reiterate until we get it right.”
Officeinsight asked Graham about the challenges in designing for healthcare today.“Other than wading through all of the acronyms?” he said jokingly. “Certainly the issues of performance, durability, and ease of cleaning continue to drive the marketplace. I chose to embrace those issues and infuse the design with thoughtful, responsive details in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner.” The other challenge in healthcare is how to give interior designers more tools to create these nurturing, healing spaces.” I consider furniture to be one such tool, which led us to develop elements like the molded wood arms, that I think offer specifiers a whole new sense of modern sophistication to these environments,” he added.
Plural’s Material Palette
Plural Studios collaborated with industry veteran Laura Guido-Clark of Love Good Color to create a holistic palette of finishes and textiles that empower designers and end-users to specify with intentional joy. A contract industry veteran, Guido-Clark worked for many years with Herman Miller, Nemschoff, Pallas, and Ultrafabrics, and used her Love Good Color methodology, bringing color understanding, science, and the senses to the table to develop the textiles and palettes for Plural Studios.
“Our team spent time understanding the philosophy of the company and the needs of their clients,” Guido-Clark said. “The palettes are reflective of those words and supported in our color, material, and finish selection, and we always looked at the offering through a holistic lens, knowing the Plural palette must support the designers’ needs, allowing them to work seamlessly and with ease.”
The textile program was curated with a lens to create a balanced palette addressing aesthetics, scale, texture, performance, and sustainability, and they collaborated with many contract industry manufacturers with a relationship to Plural, including Camira, HBF, Maharam, and CF Stinson, to name a few. Guido-Clark translated Plural’s materials and finishes into twelve different emotive palettes for deep impact, according to the diverse needs of human spaces — from “Real and Adaptable,” that are balanced and minimal, to “Inspired, Joyful, and Optimistic,” which are colorful and energetic.
Understanding there is more than one point-of-entry into the specification process, Guido-Clark and her team created an experiential approach to Plural’s textiles and finishes, “We thought about the experience of moving from one material to the next, leading the specifier on a journey with choices that were never ending.” Barbara and Anthony Brandt explained how they see the contract market changing. “There’s been a definite market shift towards wellbeing, and we’re responding with healthy furniture,” said Barbara Brandt. “Where infection control, cleanability, and long-term sustainability was historically the hallmark of healthcare furniture, we’re responding to a desire for the same criteria in workplace and educational facilities by building it into everything we offer.”
Anthony Brandt sees all sectors of the contract market as extremely interesting right now. “Many companies are looking for creative solutions that the industry is lacking,” he said. “Our most successful product solutions are developed out of client-specific needs. Partnering to solve problems and empower teams to create new solutions for their clients is the most rewarding experience.”
The company is primarily known for their commercial/corporate projects and involvement in product development for larger end users.” This space is always incredibly creative and fast paced,” Anthony Brandt says. “Currently we support North America but have active projects in Australia, Japan, France, Ireland, and India. It still blows my mind how fortunate we are to be a part of these amazing opportunities.”
HCD Expo is the main trade show that Plural is focusing on this year. “We are busy working on the next few product launches coming and developing our partnerships across the US,” says Anthony Brandt. “We look forward to attending NeoCon this year to see the amazing work our friends have done for other companies, but I would not be surprised to see a Chicago presence for Plural at the next NeoCon.”
