Pli shared a stand with AnotherCountry, Scene and Assemblyroom at Clerkenwell Design Week from 24-27 May. Together we are ASAP, a collective show from British furniture design companies which do all our manufacturing in the UK. It was a good show: quick, simple, and productive. Our thanks go to Paul at AnotherCountry, Gemma at Scene and Pete at Assemblyroom for being such a pleasure to work with during the hitch-free run up to the show, and for being great company while the show was on last week. Hopefully we’ll be able to work together again.

Alex’s Pennyfields chair has been selected by Germany’s Zehn.de web magazine as one of the top 10 beautiful bamboo creations. If you’re interested in bamboo designs, there are some great pieces in this top 10 list, including lighting, home wares and even a bicycle. Hit the link to find out Alex’s score…

Die 10 schönsten Bambus Kreationen

Alex Whitney, Head of Design at Pli, made it to the final shortlist of 3 for the 2011 Homes & Gardens Awards – Eco category. The awards were given out on Tuesday 15th March at the British Museum, Bloomsbury. The category was won by Samuel Wilkinson in conjunction with Nicholas Roope of Hulger for ‘The Plumen’ light bulb. This excellent design also went on to win the coveted ‘Brit Insurance design of the year 2011’. The other runner-up was the studio behind the Lining Energy Monitor: Greta Corke, Richard Woods and John Sawdon Smith Silver. Congratulations to all involved and hopefully Alex will have better luck next year.

There’s an article in this month’s edition of OnOffice magazine called ‘Green Rinse by Frederika Whitehead featuring the experience of MARK, InterfaceFLOR, ThinkErgonomix, Orangebox and Pli. The article focuses on Environmental Product Declarations and the role they play in creating a transparent view of the relative environmental impacts arising from different products. Pli supplies self-assessed EPDs in line with the ISO 14025 standard for all our products. The print article (page 93) features images of our products, including the new Pennyfields chair. The online article is here (text only).

Elle Decoration borrowed a couple of our Pennyfields chairs and a Whitechapel dining table for a feature on new bamboo furniture. What we didn’t expect to get back was a full-page spread of our furniture beautifully styled and shot by the Elle Decoration team for the Best Buys section (“The new must-have pieces in chic bamboo”).

Check out Page 32 of the March 2011 edition to view the full-size image. It’s a great edition of the consistently-stylish interiors magazine and well worth the cover price. Lots of other nice bamboo products on display, including Mike Charlton’s original and beautiful bamboo sideboard.

The Pennyfields chair is available at Liberty’s in London. Contract customers should contact Pli directly.

James McLachlan at OnOffice Magazine has written about Alex Whitney’s Pennyfields chair following the London Design Festival;

Bamboo seems to be all the rage at the moment, a fact not lost on Pli designer Alex Whitney who combined steel and bamboo to produce this rather lovely chair. Called Pennyfields, its simplicity and sustainable qualities helped Whitney scoop Metropolitan Works Metamorphosis award for innovative design. Pli are releasing 50 limited edition signed versions, which will be numbered, signed and hand assembled by the designer. The chair features a laminated Bamboo back and seat, a powder-coated steel frame and turned bamboo legs. Very nice, too.

Click here to read the post online and see the pictures of the chair which OnOffice has posted.

Pennyfields chairs from the limited edition run are ready to pre-order now: send us an enquiry here to make sure you reserve yours while they’re still available. We’ll deliver your signed chairs before Christmas.

Meanwhile, our chair has picked up some interest from design blogs all over the world; here are some highlights…

Inhabitat: Alex Whitney’s Pennyfields Chair Made from Bamboo and Steel

Design Klub: Pennyfields Chair

Trendhunter: Minimalist Bamboo Seating

Metropolitan Works: Met Works helps launch ‘Pennyfields’ chair at The Dock, London 22 September

The Evening Standard’s Barbara Chandler: portrait of Alex Whitney

Dexiner: Metamorphosis: A Showcase of New Products From 7 Emerging Design Studios

igreenspot: Pennyfields Chair: A Soon To Be Launched Eco-chair

Interiors writer Rebecca Proctor’s new book, ‘1000 New Eco designs‘, has just been published this week, and it includes Pli’s Hoop table, which was one of the first designs we developed for large-scale production. The Hoop table represented the very best eco design Pli was capable of at the time of making; we have had a lot of interest in the table again, from the media coverage of Rebecca’s excellent book.

The Hoop table has been superseded by the new Whitechapel table collection which Pli launched this month. We took all the feedback and advice we received from selling the Hoop table over the years and combined it with our new thinking on sustainable manufacturing techniques.

The Whitechapel collection presents some significant advantages over the Hoop table: the solid bamboo table surface is stronger and offers more surface area for the price. The painted steel legs have a much lower carbon-footprint than the Hoop’s aluminium legs, plus they give us the opportunity to offer different colours and configurations. The Whitechapel collection includes single-level and double-level occasional tables and a higher side-table with shelf which can also be used as a bedside table. A large dining table will be issued soon.

So if you liked the Hoop table, you’ll love the Whitechapel collection, too, and you’ll be safe in the knowledge that these designs represent another step forward in the development of affordable, eco-friendly furniture.

Karen Bartlett of the Sunday Times interviewed me last week. We talked about ‘green collar’ business and how Pli has changed since I founded the company in 2003. The article was published in the Business section of yesterday’s newspaper and you can read the full text here.

Pli has registered our services in the Core 77 Design Directory. This is a free database of creative companies around the world and it’s an opportunity for us to advertise our design management services. Have a browse through the other entries by location or category – there are some great studios listed here. Click the logo to view the directory.

The Christmas edition of T3, a popular gadget magazine, features the Reee chair among a line-up of the top eco-friendly and innovative products a gadget-lover can buy (page 174). As T3 says, “Saving the planet, one room at a time.”