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AELLON's Grace: Sustainable Furniture from Uhuru and a 61-Foot Fishing Boat

By LinYee Yuan - July 20, 2012

in Furniture Design | Kickstarter

Digby Beam Table, from structural beams that framed the Grace's hull.

With dumpster divers, salvage supply warehouses and innumerable upcycled interiors dotting the landscape, Brooklyn might be home to some of the thriftiest and innovative recyclers. Brooklyn-based designers Uhuru are no strangers to using reclaimed material. The design duo of Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf were name-checked in a recent NYTimes article about their 2010 Coney Island line made from reclaimed boardwalk Ipe wood and we wrote in-depth about their 2011 War Craft collection made from planks salvaged from the USS North Carolina's deck.

Hand-carved from leftover pieces of boatwood from the shop. You might recognize the style of the Lief Puzzle Stool from Uhuru's previous work for the New Museum lobby or from their 2008 ICFF collection.

While visiting Indonesia, Horvath came across a 61-foot fishing boat that had washed up in a monsoon. The 45-year-old boat, aptly named Grace, was constructed with now-threatened rainforest woods and was being disassembled to be sold off, piece-by-piece, for firewood. The designer made an offer to the boat's owner and now Grace has ~~come to the shores of Brooklyn to find~~ found a new life as beautifully hand-crafted furniture.

Uhuru has teamed up with a new sustainable furniture company AELLON to launch their first ever capsule collection, 20 "new American" designs using the salvaged wood from Grace. The company has started an Indiegogo campaign in order to help fund their first full-production run of the furniture. By donating to the campaign, backers can be one of the first to own a piece of AELLON furniture at a fraction of the retail price. Support responsible manufacturing and a hometown fave by backing the project today!

Aellon Indiegogo Campaign from Aellon on Vimeo.

Duke Oval Coffee Table has a chevron pattern inspired by a rounded surfboard shape.

Mead Writing Desk from sustainably harvested teak with two pull-out drawers and a storage shelf on top.

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Daniel Husserl

12 years ago

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Hi rabidchi - great point. I was hoping someone would ask about that! I am the founder of Aellon, the company that brought in Uhuru to design The Grace Line.

First, we did not bring the wood from Indonesia to New York. That part of the article was not correct. The story is a bit complicated though, so we don't expect everyone to get it right.

We do, however, manufacture Aellon products in an environmentally and socially responsible workshop in a traditional carving village in Indonesia. This village is in same town where we found the boat, so the wood didn't have to travel too far.

Unfortunately, Indonesia has a significant amount of deforestation taking place, which is due to companies not caring where they source their wood. In addition to utilizing reclaimed materials, we are involved with on-the-ground programs through the Indonesian non-profit Trees4Trees (www.trees4trees.org) which works with tree formers to support the reforestation of this beautiful, but poor country.

Regarding your point about carbon: Using reclaimed materials, particularly those that honor two globally threatened wood species, has a significantly smaller carbon footprint then removing trees (even sustainably harvested trees) from the ground. Check out this article in Nature Magazine for more information: http://www.nature.org/ourscience/sciencefeatures/ask-the-conservationist-march-2011-save-a-tree-save-how-much-co2.xml

Finally, sustainability is about more than just carbon. It requires life cycle thinking (i.e. how long will our product last, 10 or 200 years? Then what?). We believe that a truly sustainable product is designed with every environmental and social impact in mind.

Thanks for your comment.
Daniel
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rabidchi

12 years ago

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And how much carbon was involved in getting this reclaimed wood from Indonesia to Brooklyn?
No matter the source of the wood, it's hard to believe that a line of furniture requiring about 300kg of material for just one living could be proclaimed as sustainable...
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