New York design studio Earth to People swapped synthetic binders in its debut furniture collection called Salvage and Sap. The collection utilized reclaimed aluminum and timber from wind-felled cedar bonded together using hand-harvested pure tree sap.
The collection features monolithic chairs handcrafted from centuries-old cedar from Squamish, British Columbia. There are eight furniture pieces including a chair hand-planed from three rectilinear cedar pieces sourced from an over 400-year-old tree.
Each log used were air-dried rather than kiln-dried in Squamish and has GPS coordinates so consumers can trace the origin of their timber furniture. Meanwhile, the sap used on the Salvage and Sap collection comes from those accumulated on the tree’s surface and not from random trunk parts, carefully chipped away using a hatchet.
The collected sap is liquified via heat and then filtered through a metal mesh and a cheesecloth to remove bark and other debris. The outcome is purified pine resin that serves as a non-toxic alternative to synthetic glue. The sap, along with wooden dowels from cedar offcuts, were used to bond timber together.
Meanwhile, other furniture pieces in the Salvage and Sap collection combine timber and aluminum. This includes a boxy armchair finished with a bespoke cotton and hemp cushion stuffed with cedar shavings left from the design process.
Moreover, there’s a chunky floor lamp topped by a pleated timber lampshade. The lamp used cedar shingles extracted from a 300-year-old tree, stitched together with hand-woven cedar bark cordage. As for the aluminum pieces, they come from local recycling depots. A couple of designs include a cylindrical table lamp and an oversized rectilinear sconce.
Check It Out
Images courtesy of Earth to People
