Opendesk

OpenDesk is an initiative to produce furniture on the principles of Open Making.  It is an online marketplace that hosts independently designed furniture and connects its customers to local makers around the world. Designs are released under Creative Commons licenses. Rather than mass manufacturing and shipping worldwide, we’re building a distributed and ethical supply chain through a global maker network.

OpenDesk was born when an existing client asked 00 to ship desks we designed for their London office to New York. We responded by quoting JM Keynes, “it’s better to ship recipes than cakes”, and emailed the digital design files to a CNC workshop in a Brooklyn. The desks were delivered within a week of the request.

OpenDesk has rapidly evolved into a global platform joining designers and makers all over the world and allowing them to directly serve customers. For us, its potential to both provide new distribution channels to designers, and also reinvigorate local manufacturing has been key. With respect to the latter, 00 have established many capacity-building initiatives with communities to build their own furniture using OpenDesk technology. An example of this was helping to establish a pop-up furniture factory to fulfil a $150k order that would have otherwise been procured traditionally, this single order allowed the purchase of a CNC machine, setting up of a workshop, employment of two skilled operates, and training of local young people, as well as delivering over 600 pieces of furniture.