Ollie
Ollie is a rugged mobile modular storage cabinet that moves with its owners, adapts to their homes, and stays in homes and out of the landfills
Ollie is a mobile modular storage cabinet; equally modular storage and transportation container. An Ollie can stand alone as a nightstand or be combined with other Ollies to create larger furniture pieces like a desk, credenza, or bookcase. Then when it’s time to move from dorm room, downtown, or across town the Ollies separate, the doors close thereby secure the contents inside, and they are easily carried away.
This is a new category of furniture. Furniture that is made for modern life where moving happens often. Traditionally, people who move frequently furnish their apartment with cheap flatpack chipboard furniture and then discard it when it’s time to move. The lifecycle of this furniture is harmful to the environment and to the user who must spend time and money re-furnishing their next home. Instead, Ollies furnish people’s live’s for life by growing with its owners.
Design Innovation
Ollie is innovative mobile, modular, and scalable storage furniture. However, its true innovation is its approach to sustainability; not just through material selection but through preservation its value to its owner by adapting to their needs over time through different stages in life which is further supported by a commitment to repairing and refurbishing Ollies.
Ollie is in a new category of furniture that recognizes that many young people today are always on the move. This life style makes it difficult for our furniture to come along with us. Ollie’s raison d’être is to be along with its owner wherever they go for as long as possible. Ollie accomplishes this by changing its function through the integration of multiple units and by
incorporating features for transportation. Ollie is intended to be
bought one at a time as needs dictates, budget allows, and life requires; and then combined. The interior can be configured with different combinations of shelves and drawers. Pins unite multiple Ollies to create larger pieces: credenzas, desks, or bookshelves. The doors can be removed and stored on the rear for open and closed storage. When it is time to move the doors close; the pins are removed; and the rigid aluminum rail functions as a handle for carry and as a bumper to protect the body.
What comes from this is a product that stays useful and therefore retains its value no matter where it is and that means it stays out of landfills.
Benefit to Society
Ollie was designed with today’s financial, environmental, and humanitarian realities in mind.
Born of the 2008 housing crisis, urban housing inflation, and mounting student debt; the housing ladder is inaccessible to today’s young workers. Meanwhile, today’s young workers move often—most people in America have been in their homes for less than two years. In New York City, 40% of people moved in the last five years. When moving frequently, home furnishings often turn over too. This is costly and wasteful. Ollie affords our users the opportunity to bring their furniture with them; and this allows them to jump onto the furniture ladder.
When an object stays in use, it stays out of the landfill. This is why we
prioritize Ollie’s value to the user in our
sustainability ethos. By being adaptable, Ollies retain their value by staying relevant in new settings. An Ollie’s value even grows as it accompanies its owner from one adventure to the next. As a company, we keep Ollies in use by favoring repairs over obsolescence. We sell parts for repair, and when it is time to retire an Ollie, help owners recycle them.
Let’s face it, while we’re designing this with intentional nomads in mind, we also know that there is a global migrant crisis. Millions of people on the move, all the time, uprooted and without a stable place to settle. While Ollie serves as an object of joyful adventure for some, it could also serve as a life-support system for many.
Benefit to Brand
Ollie addresses an emergent demographic that is underserved by the staid legacy furniture industry. These people are often young, urban, and bi-coastal who move frequently in pursuit of education, employment, and inspiration. For them the old notion of home and hearth does not exist as it did for previous generations. As a result furniture market is awash with furniture that was never intended to be moved by virtue of being either too frail or too heavy and there is little for these people other than the Patagonia Black Hole duffle. Ollie recognizes the failure of the market to address how moving and sense of home has shifted for these people and champions this lifestyle in our product offering and brand values. By speaking to this lived reality of many we expect
that our messaging and brand values will be welcome and refreshing for these consumers.
We recognize that we are building Ollies for life, while good for the user and the environment it is fraught business model. To address this, once an Ollie owner buys in we engage them in a new phase of the user journey. In this phase we provide Ollie owners with the means to keep their Ollies in their lives. We offer accessories to customize the interiors. We release accessories in new color ways to keep old Ollies from being outmoded by new aesthetic trends or changing tastes. Finally, we offer our repair, refurbish, and recycle services that keep Ollies in use or disposed of responsibly.
