A Table That Resolves Its Lighting at the Factory

Walk into an airport lounge, a hotel lobby, or a university common room and you’ll almost always find the same problem: a table with a lamp sitting on it that doesn’t quite belong there. HBF and Juniper set out to fix that.

The result is a revamped version of HBF’s Firma table, a work surface that arrives from the factory with Juniper’s THIN Shared Task Lamp already built into it, lighting and power included, so that what typically requires painstaking coordination between multiple suppliers is resolved before it ever reaches the designer’s desk. It is, in the simplest terms, a table and a lamp that were always meant to be the same thing.

“Our THIN Shared Task Lamp is relatively simple to install,” says Jasmine Labeau of Juniper, “but the beauty of the collaboration is that in a typical install, the interior designer is coordinating the mounting detail: how big the holes are and where they’re located. What makes this collaboration special is that we were able to design that into the table from the beginning and take care of all of that work for the designer.”

On the HBF side, the integration was built around Juniper’s existing THIN Shared Task Lamp system, with standard sizes incorporated into tailored kits aligned to each table dimension. 

“This allows specifiers to seamlessly add lighting and power as a standard customization, fully resolved, factory-configured, and scaled to the table,” says Casey Baxter of HBF. 

What makes the collaboration feel like more than a technical exercise is how carefully the two brands aligned aesthetically. 

“It’s a breath of fresh air, honestly,” Jasmine says. “We were able to coordinate technically, but also aesthetically. There are such beautiful material pairings available between Firma and the THIN Shared Task Lamp. Terrazzo and Satin Brass is an incredible look.”

That range of finish options is one of the things both brands are most proud of. 

“Rather than competing, these elements are intentionally complementary,” Casey says. “It’s through this collaboration that we have one of the broadest ranges of standard finish options on the market with Firma, empowering designers to create highly customized solutions while maintaining the integrity and scalability of a standard offering.”

The formal language of the two products also does some of that work on its own. 

“Both Firma and the THIN System use elemental solids and right angles, but the cylinder versus cube contrast means the materials work together, not against each other,” Jasmine says. HBF brings a legacy of wood finishing and layered materiality; Juniper brings expertise in metal finishing, particularly brass, combining traditional techniques with advanced domestic manufacturing. 

The collaboration was on full display at ICFF, where both brands presented the Co/Create lounge, an environment built specifically around demonstrating what integrated furniture and lighting can feel like in practice. 

“We really wanted people to get to experience what the difference is, in context,” Jasmine says. “There’s something a bit ‘meta’ about listening to a talk about the integration of lighting and interior design while you’re sitting in a space designed around that very principle.” 

For Casey, the lounge was also an opportunity to introduce each brand’s audience to the other. “Our products naturally complement one another,” she says. “But our brands also bring distinct audiences, creating a meaningful halo effect as we introduce new communities to each other.”

hbf.com, juniperoffice.com