Kids Go Mad for Mod

Modern Style Finally Breaches the Baby Barrier

By Caroline Kooshoian
01 April 2006

“Kids are great barometers of good modern design,” says Eric Pfieffer, an award winning designer creating pieces both big and little kids can appreciate. “They don’t know one style from another, and they don’t really care if a table is red or blue or green. Kids look at how they can interact with a piece of furniture. They want a different and interesting experience that fits them,” he says.

And lately, furniture designers and manufacturers are listening closely to what kids and their parents want. For Pfieffer, that means two things: usability and durability. His Woody Chalkboard Table for Offi gives kids a surface they can draw on and a handy storage container in the center. He just finished a new children’s chair, inspired by the shape of a potato chip, that’s stackable and has handles on all four corners for easy dragging by kids on the move.

Pfeiffer often works with strong Birch plywood because kids abuse furniture when they’re young, but when they grow up, Pfeiffer wants his work to grow with them. “I had furniture as a kid that I still remember now. It’s one of those little things that sticks with me. So I want to create a fun experience that a kid hasn’t been around before, but also pieces that will be there for 40 or 50 years to be passed to the next generation.”

And more and more, parents design their babies’ rooms with an eye toward what the kids will want when they’re older. The David Netto Collection mixes white lacquer with light oak and ash veneers in three modern groups, Case Goods, Moderne, and Loft. Instead of the sentimental slushiness kids dislike as they grow older, Netto’s collections take their cues from clean contemporary, restrained European, and American Mid-Century styles. Looks from Kid’s Supply Co. give youngsters a crash course in modern design history. Take a look at their Bauhaus Bunk Beds and Prouve Desk for pieces that kids will take to well into adulthood.

When actress, model and owner of Suedebox.com Cristi Conaway was expecting her daughter, she said, “I wanted the energy of her room to be peaceful and something that would grow with her as she became a little girl.” Conaway chose sophisticated trappings in soft colors. A custom mirrored changing table sits against a wall covered in blue Rose wallpaper, a hand-printed design from Knowles & Christou, and reflects an image of Kim Parker’s Mums and Asters Tibetan wool rug from The Rug Company.

For Conaway, as for many parents, it was important that the baby’s room fit in well with the rest of the home. Since hers is a modern mix of vintage and new with a French modern flare, Conaway had to really shop around, hitting LA boutiques, thrift stores, even Ikea, to pull the look together.

For other parents though, melding their modern style with their babies' needs is as easy as picking up a pencil.

Pazit Kagel designed packaging for consumer products and medical devices, but when she had her first child, she turned her creative talent toward contemporary baby furniture. Now, she owns ModernMini.com and its counterpart 300 square foot showroom in Menlo Park, CA. where she sells her work along with items from other designers.

Melissa Pfieffer’s quest to find the perfect modern baby dress led her to stitch her own. So it’s no surprise that when she couldn’t find many choices for a modern baby nursery, she started Modernseed.com. Like ModernMini, Modernseed sells a range of furniture and accessories for newborns, toddlers, kids and their parents, including pieces designed by Melissa’s husband, Eric Pfieffer.

The range of modern designs available to kids and parents goes beyond style and provides extreme ease of use, the hallmark of something that’s truly, loveably modern. For many companies, like Oeuf, Stokke, Miguel, and others, designing for babies means designing for kids, and their furniture literally grows with the little ones. The Oeuf Crib converts into a modern white toddler bed. Miguel’s cribs come with soft, stain, odor and bacteria resistant fabrics that will remain clean even as the child grows and the crib becomes a bed. Stokke takes the trend well past toddler-hood with conversion kits that let their Sleepi basinet become two sizes of a crib and toddler bed, and then two great looking chairs. The growth philosophy guides Stokke’s other designs as well, from the KinderZeat, that supports kids from 18 months to well past 18 years, to the StokkeCare system, a changing table that becomes a table for two and then a media and book shelf.

With such straightforward solutions in cutting-edge style, it’s no wonder that modern is becoming a major category for children’s designers. Even DWR, that other great barometer of modern design, has joined the movement. It launched DWRjax with high-end designs for children from the likes of Magis, Blu Dot, and DucDuc.

But as much as modern style and its functional approach flood the marketplace, parents still seek the familiar and nostalgic. So DWRjax redesigned the most classic of classic children’s toys, the cardboard box. Now made of 100% recycled materials, pre-fab, with a fresh white surface and pre-cut windows and doors, the Cardboard Activity House puts a stake in the ground for modern children's design. This is a category that will continue to grow.

Caroline Kooshoian is an Editor for Pure Contemporary.