The US hardwood forest is underutilised. The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) has been saying as much for a while, but it’s now convincing designers and manufacturers to take up the message too. The forest, contends AHEC, is not only a growing resource, it also offers a rich diversity of different timber varieties. Yet for too long end-users, notably, but not exclusively, furniture makers have focused on a relatively few species in only the highest grades.
That, the organisation argues, is not only not making the most sustainable use of timber available, but missing a trick in terms of what lesser used, lesser known species, and also so-called lesser grades, can bring to design.
AHEC’s latest project to make its point is its ‘Too Good to Waste’ installation, developed in association with Italian designer Benedetta Tagliabue, co-founder of international architects Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, and leading UK furniture maker Benchmark.
On show during Milan Design Week in April, the interactive work comprises four pieces of furniture, each designed to wrap around the pillars at the entrance of the city’s Aula Magna auditorium at Milan University.
Visitors were invited to explore the pieces, to find in-built cupboards, shelves, seats, mirrors and other hidden features – a metaphor for the ‘hidden’ varieties of timber still unexplored in the US forest. Ms Tagliabue described it as a ‘wall full of surprises’.
“We hoped visitors would want to interact with it and that their curiosity would make it animated,” she said.
The finely finished articles of furniture are set into a ‘woodland’ of rough sawn timber in the same lesser-used species, maple, cherry, red oak and tulipwood, to illustrate what the manufacturing process can achieve with these varieties. The wood used is also lower grade.
“Too Good to Waste is about using the forest to its effective maximum,” said Benchmark co-founder Sean Sutcliffe.
“We’re using species that are not getting the value they should and showing they are versatile and useful. We’re also addressing the grading issue.
“We picky cabinet-makers have always used only the best bits. That needs to change to move to a more sustainable way of living. So we’re showing grades we wouldn’t use normally and saying ‘this is beautiful, look, it’s too good to waste’!”
“We’re tapping into a concept that’s very relevant today: how do we make more use of materials that may not be our first choice in order to be more sustainable?” said AHEC European director David Venables.
“This project opens a dialogue on these topics. Why limit oneself? Why only use materials we think we like? Let’s be more imaginative!”
