I've been taking out lots of books on furniture building from the library recently but not having much luck finding anything of interest. One book though, on “green design"*† had a page on this here chair above which I like very much. The pattern across the seat and backrest come about because the chair (and stool and coffee table and dining table... check 'em out below) is made from several alternating layers of glued together waste plywood and MDF—salvaged waste wood from old office furniture.
Aside from the obvious good vibes you get with reusing stuff headed for the dump, what I really like about these pieces is that it isn't old furniture turned into insulation or playground equipment or something else where something is ground down to a nondescript dust to be used, but that it's ugly furniture turned into pretty furniture. Some soulless hack working for Office Incorporated made (let's not say designed) some gnarly vinyl covered “work spaces” which were eventually thrown out even though they were still physically sound (no surprise there if you've ever seen the stuff) and someone else, Ryan Frank, took them and said, “Lemme see that,” flipped it sideways, played around with it, and bam, new tables.
No prices listed on the website, and these are in the Limited Edition section rather than the Retail Products section unfortunately. The rest of his stuff isn't to my taste, I might call it "quirky" or "ugly," but what can you expect from a South African white dude who lives in Barcelona? NOT MUCH is the answer.
* I put green design in quotation marks because to me that's one of those things where you're just like, “what does that even MEAN” even though you actually mostly know what it means it's just so overly used that it starts losing meaning like when you say some word like “liquid” over and over again until it just sounds weird. Liquid. Liquid. Liquid. See?
† Turns out the book is actually called GREEN DESIGN (by Marcus Fairs)... go figure.
