European natural wood furniture and home accessories by TeakPeak

Katrin

Interview with Diana and Roman Dušek. Diana and Roman Dušek design and manufacture natural wood furniture and other home accessories, such as textiles made from purely natural materials or ceramics.

Hi Diana and Roman, I am very grateful to interview you for our interior design magazine Being. Can you, please, introduce yourself? 

Diana and Roman

We are Diana and Roman Dušek. Together with the help of our families, we founded the TeakPeak store furniture studio, where we design and manufacture our own natural wood furniture. However, we also focus on the resale of selected local creators. In addition to our design concepts, our biggest ambition is to show people what benefits meaningful local furniture production can bring compared to soulless and consumer production – both in the personal’s/customer’s field and in the ecological field.

Katrin

How did the story of the Teak Peak start?

Diana and Roman

The actual production of our things came at the moment when we started furnishing our own home with natural wood furniture and everything else. We found that we lack things on our market in which, instead of strict seriality, you can see the human hand and the effort to create something unique. Roman comes from a carpentry background, so we started designing and making the first pieces for our home ourselves. We think it is essential to surround yourself with things that have a noticeable human story in them, in which the emphasis is not put only on profit, but also on the creator himself and the “created” itself.

Katrin

Your products have a unique style. Where did you find inspiration?

The actual production of our things came at the moment when we started furnishing our own home.

Diana and Roman

Diana studied art history with a focus on design and the twentieth century. It is immediately obvious to anyone involved in design that we draw on the aesthetics of the mid-century era. This period is a golden epoch of design for us, we love not only furniture from this era but in short everything that was created in the world at that time – dynamic abstraction in painting, car designs, whatever. We are true old-timers in this matter.

Katrin

I know that you design and manufacture your furniture, and household accessories from natural materials or ceramics. Which materials do you use? How do you choose the best materials?

Diana and Roman

The choice of material is essential for us. We are definitely for natural materials. On the one hand, due to ecological issues, but also purely emotional ones. Wood should be wood, not an imitation of wood. And that applies to everything. Today’s prices of natural materials are of course very high. However, if we buy products with the assumption that the given things should serve us for a lifetime and we have a choice, it is a shame to settle for an imitation. Even at the cost of dropping elsewhere, being surrounded by authenticity is uplifting, and pleasantly human.

If we have to talk specifically about our production, we try to draw on locally available materials. We choose oak, birch wood, and veneer: linen or cotton fabrics, all of European origin. Ceramics are made from clay from Czech suppliers.

Katrin

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

Diana and Roman

The quality of the raw input material for the creation or the quality of the final product is a rare thing today. Our days are senselessly rushed and the focus is mainly on the lowest price possible. The market is set on speed and seriality. At TeakPeak, we try to avoid these trends. Before we officially launch a product into the world, it has a long journey (we are talking about months and years) of designing and testing.

One has a basic idea of where the boundary of meaningful quality is and where it is not. At TeakPeak, we always try to adhere to these standards even at the cost of higher prices. We make things so that one day people can enthusiastically discover them in antiquity.

Katrin

What is your company’s vision from the perspective of sustainability?

The choice of material is essential for us. We are definitely for natural materials. 

Diana and Roman

We think that the most significant sustainability is respect for manufactured things, both on the part of the manufacturer and on the part of the customer. On the contrary, the biggest problem on the market is anonymity, unconscious buying, and the production of anything just for the purpose of selling.

At TeakPeak, we adore our things, cultivate the joy of what we make, and maintain friendly contact with our customers. Thanks to this approach, we believe that the customer also experiences a completely different form of shopping, cultivating in a way that is important for eliminating consumerism. In order to appreciate certain things, those things must have a recognizable and somehow “healthy” story. When there are no stories, there is no humanity.

Katrin

Here is a practical question. I believe people will be interested in buying your unique products after reading this interview. Can you deliver around the world? Or you are working just internally in the Czech Republic? 

Diana and Roman

The idea of selling worldwide is certainly tempting, but we’re not entirely sure if it’s within our power. At least if we are talking about shipping larger products. We are a small family business, and managing the whole world requires a completely different approach than we have followed until now. However, we do not stay only in the Czech Republic and we also sell furniture to the rest of Europe. We’ll see what the future brings.

Katrin

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

Diana and Roman

(Roman) I wanted to be a pilot. I’ve been a dreamer since I was little and I like my solitude. I was attracted by the open space up there, the profound silence of the clouds.

(Diana) Since I was a little kid I was drawn to everything connected to art and attended many different art classes. So I guess I’ve always dreamed of working in some creative field. Therefore I’m really grateful that my childhood passion actually became my work.

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? 

Diana and Roman

This is a very complex question. Believing that man can help the state of our planet through his behavior is similar to believing in God. Deep faith, is connected to everything we do in life, how we treat our surroundings, and our values. It is a good idea for a better tomorrow, and we definitely follow this way.