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Looking Back to Save the Future
I chuckle when "looking back" is critiqued as inaccessible - sure, especially in the decorative arts, we cannot make those products affordable when its creators want to earn a decent living by today's standards, but so often their labor-intensity was precisely the point. Common craft skills are things that almost anyone can make, with minimal capital investment. It's mostly not scalable in the sense that "I" can't make it at scale to sell to everyone else. The Shakers, members of the Arts & Crafts movement were still looking for ways to conspicuously feature the human labor input. Joiners featured "marks of good craftsmanship" that often featured guild secrets. "Primitive" techniques are, by definition, accessible. Ironically, I think Nakashima is an excellent example of navigating the economies of making simple, beautiful, durable furniture: they use machine turned spindles, and departing from the aesthetic of large slabs, they generally use seats made from a panel made from several boards. So much craft had to change in response to economics of machinery: ex. building with sawn lumber instead of riven lumber. Today's technology should be able to serve the opposite goal: identify and produce materials suitable to intermediate-skill (as opposed to de-skilled or guild/artisan) manufacturing techniques. A designer closer to the build-process, rooted in place, is most certainly a scalable model (just not in the sense that any one business entity could capture most of the value). I look to body shops as an analogy: you want your bodyman to be local not because you expect to visit them frequently, but they know local styles, practical considerations with climate and road conditions. If you mention a car in the area you'd like to emulate, not only have they probably seen it, but they've already spent some time thinking about it. A builder-designer in a city may well consider the flooring, the size of doorways, height of ceilings, etc..
Hard to believe there is much of a case for disassembly/ reuse. What you start with is so unpredictable, it's a small scale craft operation. Thank God, furniture at least is made on such a low volume basis that you can't get a uniform product out of recycling it. In most cases, the resulting boards are so small there is not much future for them. The exceptions, panels from case goods, sideboards from bed frames, are then limited in volume while varied in species, cut, material, color.
Just a thought... I wonder how sustainability certifications (in timber or plastics e.g.) could work in tandem with craft-based methodologies somehow to help guide the whole economy of making toward circularity. If all materials were used with these disassemble-able, bio-reusable making methods, that could be really dramatic -- or if there were sort of reciprocal requirements for certification, e.g. where not only is the MATERIAL certified, but the usage also has to be too. I don't know... crossed my mind as I read these beautiful anecdotes from Jonsara!