Page 83 - The Tent Handbook 2017

Reflections of a tentmaker by Bo Hilleberg
I Have WrItten Before about how we “design” our tents, and why we have so many models. But in reality, we don’t typically think in terms of design. Instead, we think about nding better solutions. When we rst started making tents, all we wanted to do was solve the problem of creating a good “ äll” tent, a speci c concept in Scandinavia that applies to the mountains here. A great deal of our mountain terrain is above the tree line, and the weather can be anything from wonderful to abysmal. So any tent for the Scan- dinavian “ äll” country must be quite strong, and able to handle any weather – including snow storms in the summer – and stand up to the exposure that comes from no forested protection. On top of this, we wanted a tent that was easy to pitch, and I had long been annoyed with having to erect the inner tent then put a y sheet over it. Our solution: connect the inner tent and y sheet – what we call the outer tent – so that the entire tent erects together. This makes pitching in windy conditions easier, and keeps the inner tent from ever getting wet, and makes for an excellent äll tent.
All through the years since then, every model of tent has been about a solution rather than a design. In fact, we don’t have “design- ers” at Hilleberg; we have a product development group, and we have constructors who make the tents, and build the patterns. When we start developing a new tent, or any improvements, we look at what we want to accomplish, and nd the best way to achieve that func- tion. Once that is done, we test it, for quite a long time, in both the lab and outdoors.
To a large degree, this approach for solutions is tied directly to materials. When we see a problem that needs solving, we look for materials that will provide the solution. Sometimes we discover that the materials are not up the task. In the late 60s and early 70s, most tent poles were solid, rather than hollow, and so did not have shock- cord-connected sections. We had created a dome tent and a tunnel tent, but found that the technology of the poles wouldn’t allow us to achieve the function we wanted. So we shelved the project until technology “caught up.”
Sometimes, the right technology has come from unexpected places. In the mid-70s, one of our fabric suppliers sent us samples of a new fabric with a silicone coating instead of the usual polyurethane. He claimed it was just a di erent coating option, but we discovered that it was much more than that.
At that time, we had been looking for a solution to make tents stronger in a very speci c way: we had seen that if the outer tent developed a small tear – if for instance, someone stepped on the tent while wearing crampons – that tear could “grow” quite large, especially in windy situations – even to the point where the hole would force the tent’s occupants to abandon their trip. We quickly discovered that the new silicone-coated fabric was, in fact, much stronger and more resistant to tearing, and so we started using it immediately, as it provided exactly the solution we were looking for.
I have always believed that function comes before design, and that good function almost always looks really good. In creating a tent, when we are satis ed that we have the right function – the right solution to the problem – then we might look at “design,” some ad- ditional way to make our solution perhaps a bit more attractive. But only if that will not in any way interfere with the function. Design is the last piece, and comes last, if at all!
This function- rst outlook is the way we have always worked at Hilleberg. At the same time, we are a company built around being outdoors, in nature. I grew up working on the land, and then became a practicing forester, so respect for and engagement with the envi- ronment has always been part of how I think, and it’s something I built into Hilleberg as well. We choose materials and practices that make as little impact on the environment as possible while still providing the function we want. We build our tents to last, and to be repairable in a straightforward way. A er all, we put our family name onto every tent, and we use them as o en as possible, so we want them to be as good as they can be!
Petra and Bo Hilleberg ski touring in the Swedish mountains on a recent tent testing trip. Photo: Jon Dykes/Hilleberg Team.
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