Who is Design Rocket?

The team behind Design Rocket is Lena and Lars Vilstrup-Sørensen. The two met each other back in 2010, began dating in 2013, married in 2016 and well, after that things went fast: welcoming 2 children, a cat and now their own company.

Design Rocket’s roots are to be found in the middle of the beautiful “Bøgeskov” (beech forest) in Skanderborg, Denmark. The company was brought to life and is today driven by 2 creative minds that had the courage to take the plunge into a private and business driven life together. Lena has a graphic-designer background, whereas Lars has more than 20 years of carpenter experience, even though he has not reached his 40’s yet. The couple’s home reflects their creativity and practical expertise. Most of their furniture and decor is handcrafted. In January 2019, after many years of encouragement from friends and family, Lena and Lars decided to launch Design Rocket.

The initial plan for Design Rocket was to be a free-time establishment, while both still kept their full-time jobs. But sometimes destiny has other plans. In summer 2019, Lena became ill and could no longer work full time. At the same time, interest in Design Rocket increased, and they got selected to be a part of the Creators Community at Formland. That became the starting point of going all in on the dream and passion – to create sustainable, handcrafted furniture.

Product range

Design Rocket emerged due to their own practical needs for the children’s room.

Lena and Lars’ first child, their daughter Gry, was still a toddler, when it became clear, she had an abundance of stuffed animals crowding her room. It had become difficult to find a neat and practical way to store them all. Gry couldn’t find that one teddy she wanted to play with, searching through bags and boxes filled with stuffed animals. Bags and boxes overfilled, Gry could not find that one special teddy bear she wanted to play with. Resulting into conflict, all stuffed animals ended on the floor.

The next dispute happened when it was time to tidy Gry’s room. As all toddler parents know, you want to keep all unnecessary conflicts to a minimum. That is how Design Rocket’s Teddy Zoo came to life. A zoo with elastic “bars”, where all her stuffed animals finally got a home, making it convenient to spot and find that favourite teddy bear effortlessly. Yet allowing even the youngest kids to be able to take their favourite teddy bear in and out. Tidying up suddenly becomes a playful adventure; Teddy is moving into the zoo!

Another conflict that also could have been avoided, was when Gry wanted her parents to read a book for her but had trouble  remembering the name of the exact book she wanted. Lars and Lena used to take out  book by book from the shelf before Gry pointed out the right one – much to the frustration of everyone.

Lars explains: “The idea behind Gry bookshelf was to give our daughter the possibility to pick a book by its picture cover, therefore creating a bookshelf that could showplace her books, covers facing towards her. Hence also naming the bookshelf after her.”

Furry fellow

Most homes also have a furry four-legged child. At the Vilstrup-Sørensen family, it is a cat called Sylvester. Sylvester does not always know if he really is a cat or a dog, but he is almost like the third child of the family. He follows the family around the house and is always in the same room as them. He comes along in the morning when Gry and Jonas are being walked over to be delivered at the day nursery and preschool. He loves being able to keep an eye on everyone, but at the same time loves to hide, especially when there are too many people around. Therefore, Lars designed a multifunctional piece of furniture, consisting of 11 pentagons. Sylvester can use the furniture as a hiding cave while it also can be used as a table or a stool.

The latest design from Design Rocket is our stacking box range.

Lena has designed stacking boxes made in wood in two sizes that can be stacked on top of each other. The stacking boxes are intended as an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic boxes, they are available in birch wood and 10 different valchromat colours. They can be used all over the home as multipurpose or transport boxes.

Quality and production

Design Rocket is solely responsible for all design and production processes. Lena and Lars design their own products, choose the right materials and everything is being handcrafted at their own workshop in Skanderborg, Denmark. By choosing to produce on demand, after having received an order, Design Rocket has no unnecessary overproduction. In order to minimize waste, all excess materials are stored and creatively reused in other products.

The materials are chosen based on the idea of being as environmentally friendly as possible. We can all do our best to reduce CO2 consumption: you as an individual and we as a company. Therefore, at Design Rocket all our wood is FSC approved and comes from European forests (read more about FSC here). We are mainly using birch plywood, as veneers can be made from waste wood that cannot be used for anything else.

Lately, Lars and Lena also started working with valchromat, a further development of MDF plates but 30% stronger and more resistant than usual MDF. Valchromat plates consist of sawdust, mainly from residual and waste wood, which is being dyed with organic dyes and glued together with a specially developed resin glue, giving the plates a high abrasion and moisture resistance.

After having been presented with Valchromat in 10 beautiful colours, Lena and Lars stuck their creative heads together, immediately designing new products and seeing new opportunities – putting their new ideas into action.

Design Rocket strives to create beautiful home decor and interior without burdening the environment and our children’s future.