What happens when a chair is allowed to have a voice? At Living Sound, a private Bang & Olufsen x SOFACOMPANY activation held at the B&O Experience Centre in Kramerville, the answer was not delivered as a conventional product presentation. It was experienced in the body, through sound, comfort, breath and story.
For one evening, the familiar codes of a showroom were gently rearranged. Design-led SOFACOMPANY pieces moved from the edges of the room to its centre. Bang & Olufsen’s audio engineering shaped the atmosphere. Guests were invited into a slower encounter with furniture, one that asked not only how an object looks, but what it holds, what it remembers, and how it changes the feeling of a space.
At the heart of the activation was a simple but distinctive idea: furniture is never only furniture. A well-made piece becomes the place where conversations run long, where a Sunday afternoon becomes evening, where music is heard properly, where a pause is finally taken. Living Sound made this lived-in dimension visible by making it audible and felt.
Furniture with a point of view
Replacing traditional yoga mats, SOFACOMPANY couches were arranged within the B&O Experience Centre’s listening environment. Somatic breathwork storyteller and facilitator Lesego Mapeka guided guests through a sensory session that connected the physical experience of settling into a seat with the soundscape around them.
The furniture was introduced not as a collection of specifications, but as a cast of characters. Paula, designed by Line Nevers Krabbenhøft, brought sculptural ease and the promise of unhurried conversation. Otis, designed by Cathrine Rudolph, represented the quiet relief of a reading nook and the exhale at the end of a long day. Babette, by Katrine Bjørn, carried the softness and intimacy of a boutique hotel. Greta evoked the relaxed warmth of contemporary Danish living, while Judi and Daphne offered their own invitations to composure, gathering and stillness.
In this framing, each product became more than an object to inspect. It became a personality to meet. Design authorship, material comfort and imagined moments of use gave each piece its own emotional language, allowing guests to relate to the collection through memory and sensation before purchase or product detail.
“SOFACOMPANY is built on the belief that a sofa is more than an object. It is where people come together, unwind, and make the everyday feel like home. Living Sound was the natural way to bring that belief to life, because it allowed guests to experience our pieces through the feeling they create, not only through their form.” Jonno Sherwin, Managing Director, SOFACOMPANY South Africa
A listening room, not a showroom
The B&O Experience Centre provided the ideal setting for that shift. Known as a space for sensory immersion, it gave the activation a different grammar from the usual design event. Sound did not operate as background. It became an active part of the room, bringing scale, rhythm, and emotional texture to the encounter with the furniture.
The collaboration brought two complementary disciplines into dialogue. Bang & Olufsen’s acoustic excellence created a space in which guests could listen with intention. SOFACOMPANY’s design comfort created a space in which they could settle, gather and stay. Together, the brands turned premium furniture and premium sound into a single experience of contemporary living.
“Bang & Olufsen has always worked at the meeting point of sound, design and craftsmanship. Living Sound made that intersection tangible. By allowing sound to shape the room and the pace of the experience, we could show how audio and furniture together can create a more personal and lasting connection.” Gareth Payne, Managing Director, Bang & Olufsen South Africa
The narrative is the activation
Living Sound demonstrates an approach to brand activation that begins with meaning rather than display. Instead of treating a product launch as a sequence of features, the experience built a narrative world around the objects themselves. The sofa became the setting for a story. The sound system became the atmosphere that carried it. The guest became an active participant rather than an observer.
That approach matters because the spaces we live in are never neutral. They shape the way we rest, connect, host, listen, and remember. By placing product stories inside a live, multi-sensory setting, Bang & Olufsen and SOFACOMPANY showed how design can move beyond the showroom and into the emotional fabric of everyday life.
Living Sound was ultimately a celebration of the moments that happen around good design: a record played late, a conversation that lingers, a body allowed to settle, a room that feels more like itself because every element has been chosen with care. It gave the SOFACOMPANY collection a new kind of life, not by changing the products, but by revealing the stories already waiting inside them.
Ultimately, sofas are no longer mere decor pieces; they are vessels for conversation, creating memories and creative ideas. May we sit a little longer, lounge a little more, and be intentional about the spaces we share.
