Milan 2024

16 – 21 APRIL 2024

Intro and 40×40 Collector’s Display Cases

Where we exhibit is something I don’t need to write down by now, as it has been in the same place for years. Although we actually planned to focus on selling the collection of accessories we have slowly but surely built up, the workshop is currently in turmoil again to get the (new) designs finished on time. We wanted to create another dynamic with the small stuff. 10 years ago, we presented glasses and other small stuff and made some kind of sheet material presentation showcases especially for that occasion. Actually a kind of non-design, just meant for exhibitions. For the next eight years, we used the increasingly dilapidated display cases to sell our small stuff. This year, we are making “presenting small stuff” our main goal again. We have created 40×40 Waste Waste Collector’s Display Cases. With the most ingenious 40×40 details, we have gone one step more extreme. Instead of being as cheap as possible and only functional, they now become works of art in themselves!

The Environmental Service Cabinet

In recent years, we have been increasingly pained by agencies and governments coming up with the most peculiar mandatory inspections, reports and requirements. At one point, I figured that if one more “inspector” comes in unsolicited and leaves a mandatory recommendation (which usually means we have to invest or can write off tens of thousands and even more) I was going to kick the bucket. I hadn’t figured it out yet, or the environmental service made its appearance. According to them, no more (scrap) wood is allowed in our recently subsidised wood gasifiers that we use to heat the building. We can still separate, but no more sawing will be a problem. I was and am sick to my stomach of it. For us, the paint on the wood is precisely what we use in our products, so we don’t have that much waste. To make a virtue of a necessity, I came up with The Environmental Service Cabinet. We cut all the wood in random widths from 10 to 35 mm and to a length of 80 mm and make objects out of them. With the little waste that remains now, we are experimenting to make products from self-produced wood chips. We will show these products during DDW in October. The container we have rented by order of the environmental service to have our wood waste disposed of in a registered way will not fill up very soon. More than ever, we are selling our own waste. Surely they should be happy about that! Already thinking; we make products from scrap wood which is otherwise largely sent straight to the incinerators, the wood is almost completely used and goes into valuable products and the residual wood goes (went) into our high-quality stoves which meet the strictest requirements. Now, due to a possible very minimal contamination, large quantities of residual wood have to be disposed of to be burnt as yet and we have to use another supplyable fuel to heat. It needs no university education to observe that enforcing the rules in this case completely defeats the purpose. Anyway, rules are rules, and coming up with a process that requires even more thought than the 40×40 products and where we can process almost all the residual material is actually a lot of fun. I wish I had come up with it earlier!

Waste Waste 40×40 Hall Set + 40×40 Mirror

Back in October, we showed a coat rack and hall closet. Now we have added a mirror. The mirror is a mix between the 40×40 collection and a 3D mirror made of old wood that we made some of a while ago.

Thick Beam Table

As I was drawing the floor plan for the presentation, it occurred to me that we should actually present a new table again. One of the tables that is doing quite well, but with which we have problems with the shrinking of the wood, was the inspiration. Thick beams of old wood, which works less anyway, are mounted on a centre beam and can be pressed on at the ends. The only drawback is that the scrap wood beams are different each time and the tables have to be made individually. So they are more expensive than a series product. Unfortunately, that is no longer a disadvantage these days, because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and our customers come from the first group, because artisanal and cheap production in Europe is impossible. So it’s actually super nice that we are presenting a unique table! Who knows, maybe we will also make it more affordable in oak.

Scrapwood Armchair and Sofa with Rib Fabric

30 years ago, I came up with a whole bunch of scrapwood sofas and armchairs. It was not a success. However, a reasonably selling scrapwood bucket chair did come out of it and the Crisis Cushion Sofa also resembled its predecessor in scrapwood. We could actually quite use a (scrapwood) bench, so I started drawing to fill the gap in the collection. The construction of As-Thick-As-Wide scrapwood planks could hardly be simpler.

Old Pine Coffee Cube

One of the most beautiful waste designs is the one made of steel. Boxes are bent and spot welded together. The effect is to radius the edges between the blocks, creating a pattern of buttock seams. This image is the starting point for the Old Pine Salon Block. Instead of the curved buttresses, we mill a similar radius to the old pine planks. The block looks like a massive stack of block wood. We have the old pine left over after making objects from the outside of huge beams.

Chess Table no. 3

Previously, we have thus made 2 custom-made ones for customers. A chess table fits into the earlier series of games: Mahogany and Ash Table Tennis Table, Football Game, Shuffleboard and Aluminium Table Tennis Table.

New Sawn Glass Lamps 1, 2 and 3

The series of 3 Standing Sawn Glass Objects was presented for the first time during DDW. Spectacularly luxurious they are! The brass rings with openings for the glass and tabs to connect together are like jewellery that form a sculpture with each other. At one point, I had the parts in my hand and saw the base; an unlikely puzzle that I pretty much sketched out. Harm deciphered the sketch and meticulously drew it together and Vincent, our lamp man, then put the lamps together like it was no rocket science!

Stackable Ceramic Double-Sided Candleholder

The Stackable Ceramic Two-Sided Candleholder is designed as a sister to the One Mould Lamp. It is made of stoneware, can be used two ways and comes in different colours.

Old Windows Cabinet Stacks

The structure or mountain of windows is part of architecture rather than furniture. We have made it this way before, but not presented it before.

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