Talented designers are not only a driving force behind Pedersen + Lennard’s best selling furniture, but a band of folk who like to fiddle, tinker, and above all play. On any given day, you’ll find them in between the design studio and factory floor where ideas are hatched and last minute tweaks make all the difference. 

What comes across in our chat with the designers – and the reason we sat down with them – is how well-considered and seemingly simple designer furniture like a chair, piece of storage, or table can shape our lives. Similarly, the backgrounds and influences of our designers have forged their paths and trajectory that led them to create Pedersen + Lennard pieces that may only be simple in appearance, but wildly robust in process, conceptualisation, and testing.

LUKE PEDERSEN & JAMES LENNARD: PLAY MEETS FUNCTION

Co-founders Luke Pedersen and James Lennard are in many ways old school, but both look ahead for better products, improved manufacturing, and value-added play. Their personalities are seemingly at odds – Luke is affable and fueled by strong, black coffee while James is more reserved, feeding and finessing his technical know-how into design – but are always open to change, constant refinement and encouraging independence. 

Their favourite product picks may surprise you, for they are the results of missing elements within product categories and crafting beautiful design solutions that also minimise waste. 

For Luke, his pick of the bunch is the Strata Couch Table, found in our Strata Range, which is the product of laminating timber off-cuts, resulting in a unique visual effect. With its unique grain, each piece of Strata furniture feels one-of-a-kind. With its cantilever design that easily reaches over a couch’s armrest, Luke notes his family fights over who gets to sit next to and use their Strata Couch Table. 

James Lennard, in typical blunt fashion, plainly states the Veld Fire Pit. Frankly, the piece speaks for itself: the colourful, broadly rippled frame imbues play and practical design into a versatile fire pit, which effortlessly punctuates a patio or balcony. With clever engineering for airflow and heat protection, and lots and lots of prototyping, it’s safe to say the Veld Fire Pit was forged for the modern master of the flame.

AMBER'S PICK: A DESK OF ONE'S OWN

Amber is P+L’s first female furniture designer and has been part of the team for many years. For Amber, you have to make really good no's in your life to make your yes’s more powerful. So what was the ‘yes’ that led her to the Pedersen + Lennard design team? 

After sitting down with her dad at the dining room table, he found the same industrial design course that co-founders Luke Pedersen and James Lennard did, which Amber then applied to. 

“It's the only course I applied for, I got in. and since then, design has just been my yes throughout life, which is just how I got here,” says Amber. “After studying I looked at lots of jobs, but they weren’t quite right, and at the same time Luke looked through lots of designers. Once we met we both said ‘Yes, this is where I’m meant to be”.  

Since joining, Amber’s curiosity and standing for what she believes brought her to refining the Firenze Desk: “I love the Firenze Range so much that it was the first time I stuck my neck out to change an existing design. The desk didn’t exist at the time, but I felt it should. So I made the model and only told Luke after.”

KYLE & OSCAR'S PICKS: SHELVING AND STORAGE WITH STYLE

Witnessing their work cross the threshold from the factory floor to be loaded on the truck, en route to our showroom, is a special experience for our designers. It’s safe to say it’s a unique feeling that never gets old. For Kyle, our technical designer, that happened the first time he saw the finished Escarpment Louvre Server.

“The Escarpment Server was one of the first bigger products I had a hand in. James Lennard kicked it off, but it simply didn't exist before I joined,” Kyle recalls. “Once I'd finished working on it, there was this complete product, which was really cool to see coming out of the factory.”

Like many designers, Kyle is a bit of a fiddler who is always out to decode how things work. Having studied Mechanical Engineering and Renewable Energy Research in Solar Power, for Kyle there is not time to waste. He works to improve how we make our furniture and ensures we have better processes that minimize waste. 

Joining Kyle on the technical side is Oscar, the latest addition to the P+L design team, who joined in early 2025 after attending one of our fan-favourite factory tours. But, it was after a visit to our De Waterkant showroom that the Tulbagh Freestanding 5 Tier Shelf struck a chord with him. 

“One day at the showroom I saw the Tulbagh Five Tier Shelf. I think and dream about it every day – I think it’s the mix of material, but something about that shelf just makes it my favourite. Especially in Coffee Oil, it really brings out the grain of the wood, and the grain tells a story,” he says. 

With Oscar’s knack for building with his hands and a track record at other fellow local design brands, it’s clear his interest in creating functional pieces and interior design draws his eye to a utilitarian shelf that allows for versatile styling.