Sustainability And Survivability

A guest post by John Strauss.

We are members of the Sustainable Furniture Council. We believe in using resources wisely. We recycle our wood waste and our water bottles. We are always looking for materials that are less harmful for the environment (and for us).We are beginning to test out water borne finishes. We haven't converted to them yet, because in the past the industry has not been able to produce a finish with the same aesthetic, durability and working qualities as pre-catalysed lacquer. Water borne finishes are not devoid of solvents in their formula.We are going to test several new products including an European one that have advanced in all of the features we are looking for. We will not compromise our quality however.The lacquer that we currently use meets the rigorous European environmental standards and is considered a low VOC product. Acetone is not considered a VOC, by the way, which doesn't mean you can freely breath it. 

I have contended for the longest time that the most environmentally friendly thing you can do in purchasing furniture is to find a local maker  and buy a product that is built to last generations, and is responsibly made. In the same logic that recycling is good, while re-using is better, buying furniture built locally to last generations is much better than buying "Green" furniture shipped across the ocean and built to last ten years. The latter will then have to take up landfill space or be burned. The former has a small carbon footprint.

We try to build things that last. That means basically doing two things: Firstly, choosing materials of a high quality, such as solid wood, kiln dried to the proper level of moisture. Secondly, it means paying close attention to joinery. A good joint should not need a great deal of glue to successfully bond. Staples and screws will always fail before a good glue joint will. I have looked at a great deal of antique furniture that needs to be repaired. You learn a lot by examining these joints. Chairs built from turned parts with dowel joints almost always fail because the maker didn't understand wood shrinkage and the joint had to rely on the glue. Nakashima (http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/) was one woodworker who knew how to fit the joint and then shrink the wood before joinery so that the wood would expand to lock the joint together. A good dovetail joint almost needs no glue to be solid. Same with a mortise and tenon. But I have seen countless joints come to me after desperate repairs with screws, dowels, etc. in a last ditch attempt to save a chair or some such thing. 

We just had a potential customer switch to a product made in Asia, rather than buy custom made from us. The reason given was the cost of the product. The imported product is of vague provenance and of non described materials. In a photograph, the import looks great. In reality, when it arrives, how will it look? When will the day come that quality and the environment are also factored into the cost equation? When does the consumer cross over and weigh the Earth' future (not to mention our economy) in making these decisions? I hope that environmental concerns are not the exclusive province of the ultra-rich.

Submitted by John Strauss. John is a friend of C.H.I.P.s and owner of John Strauss Furniture Design. John has been creating furniture for twenty years for designers and architects. Make sure to visit his blog, and follow him on Twitter.