Australian Innovative Furniture Design by Koskela

Katrin

Interview with Sasha Titchkosky is the Co-founder of Koskela; one of Australia’s most innovative furniture and homewares design businesses. Sasha is the driver of Koskela’s social impact arm which focus on using Koskela’s design skills to create income-earning opportunities for Australia’s Indigenous communities.

The Koskela store, located in Sub Base Platypus, a former submarine base in North Sydney on Cammeraygal land. Selling Koskela’s own furniture as well as a range of sustainable and Australian made homewares, furniture, garden, and art, as well as Koskela Juniors. Within this space, Koskela also presents the Koskela Gallery, an art gallery with a focus on emerging art for new collectors, and with a new exhibition every month.

Hi Sasha, thank you for taking part in this project and giving an interview to Being Magazine. Can you please introduce yourself?

Sasha

My name is Sasha Titchkosky and I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Koskela, an Australian furniture and homewares design company.

Katrin

How did the story of the Koskela start?

Sasha

Koskela began many years ago – 22 years ago to be exact! It was founded by my partner, Russel Koskela and I. Russel was a trained interior designer with a passion for innovative furniture design and I trained as a lawyer. We met, got together and started Koskela about 5 months later. We both love design – he loves furniture and interiors and my passion was the design of a company and the ingredients that make one different from another. We were both motivated to start a company that reflected our values which includes a commitment to sustainability, local manufacturing and enduring design.

Katrin

I know that you have a strong vision with Koskela. Can you share it with our readers? 

We see ourselves as being change-makers in our field who are willing to push the boundaries while create beautiful well-made high quality products.  

Sasha

Our secret ambition is to be the Patagonia of innovative furniture – loved for our products, how we do business and not afraid to challenge the status quo. We see ourselves as being change-makers in our field who are willing to push the boundaries while create beautiful well-made high quality products.

Katrin

Tell us some interesting, curious facts about the Koskela.

Sasha

Most people don’t realise that most of our revenue comes from our work in workplace and education.

We work with almost every university in Australia.

Our schools range took 3 years to develop.

Katrin

Interior design industry in general has a huge environmental impact. I know that you created a unique program “Koskela Future Fit program” have as minimal an impact on the earth as possible. Can you share more about this program?

Sasha

Firstly, we measure our carbon footprint – we’ve done this across all three scopes for the last 3 years.

Secondly, we are in the process of developing a new business model which will be more circular in its nature.  This includes designing our products so that they are as easy to repair as possible which means they don’t need to come back to us for repair.

Thirdly, we are actively substituting or minimising the use of high embodied carbon material in our designs and actively encouraging and talking to our supply chain about their use of renewable energy to power their sites.

Lastly, we have a program to eliminate the use of virgin materials wherever we can in our designs which we are working on now. 

Katrin

And I know that you have an impressive goal for 2030. Share it please with our readers.   

Sasha

We want to get to absolute zero emissions without any offsets. We know that this will involve big changes to areas such as transport in Australia (eg we need trucks powered by renewables) and the use of new innovative materials, not all of which we will be able to control. But it’s important for us to have an ambitious goal partly as a signal to the market that there are companies out there who will readily embrace and help develop these things . 

Katrin

I also read that you collaborate with First Nations people and managed in 2022 return $1.1 million to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Tell us more about collaboration and where we can see these products you create together.

Sasha

We started an impact program in 2009 to see if we could create income earning opportunities for First Nations artists by collaborating with them. The backbone of these collaborations has been a range of lighting which is available to buy from us and more recently a range of fabrics. Each artist and each community we work with has a unique style and story to tell. 

Katrin

How do you control the quality of the products? What is the manufacturing process?

Sasha

We work with a range of local manufacturers who have similar standards of quality as us. We are ISO 9001 certified and have strong quality control processes. We also standby the quality of our products by backing them with a 7 year warranty. 

Katrin

I love your “Repair & Renew program”. I think this way can really make a difference for our planet. Can you share more details about the program?

We have always been open to repairing our products to extend their life cycle.

Sasha

We have always been open to repairing our products to extend their life cycle. We really wanted to make this more explicit to our customers to encourage them to contact us if they need to refresh or repair their Koskela pieces. It’s been wonderful to see some of our pieces come back to us for repair – we’ve had sofas that have been in Australia, Hong Kong, Beijing, Switzerland and then back to Australia where we reupholstered them and they look like new again. Another sofa was 19 years old and had been in a hairdressing salon before coming back to us for reupholstery. It looks beautiful and is back in the salon providing a comfortable place for customers to sit before their appointment. A custom designed boardroom table was refurbished after 6 years and looked like new again.

Our design team are working their way back through our older products to redesign them to make them easier to repair which is our ultimate goal – we’d like to be able to send teams to the products or send components to customers so it’s easy to keep them looking fantastic and feeling loved for longer. 

Katrin

It is not just about nature and environment, right? Toxic materials used in the house/school/office can affect people’s health. 

Sasha

They certainly can. This was especially important to us when looking at the range we developed for schools – the avoidance of using these chemicals in the construction and furnishing of classrooms is not factored into most decision making which is really problematic when dealing with young bodies that absorb these things more easily. We have had GECA certification since 2012 which requires us to provide information and avoid the use of harmful chemicals in all of our products. This independent verification is important for our customers. 

Katrin

Which product is the most popular in your store? 

Sasha

Our Quadrant Soft sofas is our best selling furniture piece. It was designed in 2010 and people love its flexibility and style.  

Katrin

Are you working just in Australia at the moment or all around the world?  

Sasha

Mostly in Australia. 

Katrin

I want to ask a personal question. Which profession did you dream about when you were a kid? 

Sasha

I always wanted to be a doctor and work internationally with Medecins Sans Frontier – I guess that purpose motivation has always been part of my value set. 

Katrin

I believe together we can change the world for the better. Do you? What is your personal view on the future of our planet?  

Sasha

I am actually very worried about the future of our planet. I am feeling far less hopeful about our ability to combat the impact of climate change. My biggest fears stem from the corruption in our political systems that have allowed fossil fuel companies to continue their expansion. I have no doubt we are smart enough to tackle the problem and have the solutions.