Plant Seven celebrates its opening today as Fall High Point Market kicks off. Housed in downtown’s former Union Square Building, a 90-year-old former textile mill, the “innovation center” is slated to become a year-round epicenter of creativity and culture in the world’s furniture capital.
Inside, multi-exhibitor showroom Mill Collective (formerly Mill Valley Collective, which was previously located above Cisco Home in Mill Village) is expanding its exhibitor list—and its footprint. New talent includes makers such as Miles and May Furniture Works, Radvalley Designs, Meredith Hart, Evan Berding Custom Furniture and Woodwork, Cricket Radio Interiors, and Skram Furniture. To fit in all the new kids on the block, Mill Collective grew from 15,000 to 21,000 square feet and recently launched a website.
Among Skram Furniture’s introductions is the expansion of the brand’s Arak lighting collection, a collaboration between founder and creative director Jacob Marks and porcelain artist Mimi Logothetis. New mirrors, beds and chairs will be available as well. (Skram’s latest pieces “remind me why I love this work,” says Marks. “I’ve spent the past [several] months refining a group of designs that are varied in materiality, function and scale [that are] unified by a common aesthetic.”)
The showroom is just one facet of the ambitious new center for design, which will ultimately include a co-working space, Material ConneXion library, cafe and retail. The aptly named nonprofit HP365, which focuses on community development in High Point, has found a home there as well.
“Plant Seven represents a new approach for the city,” says project developer and HP365 CEO Tim Branscome. “It will allow for talent to emerge from the grassroots, and our programming will [hopefully] speak to the next generation.”
The soft opening reception will be tonight from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., introducing its Material ConneXion library. Mill Collective will be open to all Market attendees today through Wednesday.
