Sustainable Design in My Own Back Yard

Having been inspired by Nathan Shedroff's recent appearance and talk at UCD's Kleiber Hall I desided to try an experiment. I had been thinking about the concept of sustainable design for a few days since hearing him speak and I kept pondering the idea of how I personally as a carpenter could take the concept and implement it in my work and in my life.

I had been demolishing a redwood deck for a customer over the previous week. I knew that it was basically time for a new deck and that the old one was rotting in places. However, there was still some wood in the deck that had life left. Once you removed the rotten area the pieces that were still good would be too short to use in a new deck but surely they could be used somewhere. With my newfound inspiration I decided to see if I could come up with a project in which I could use the remaining wood. After mulling it over a few days I stubled on my answer while at a friend's wedding.

The wedding was held at lodge and in the lodge I literally found the answer under my ass. I had sat on a bench and realized it was pretty but not very comfortab

le. I had built benches in the past and a key component of many designs I found lacking was the seat itself. This particular bench had a small sign however that stated it had been made of “reclaimed” redwood from an old barn. So it hit me – I would design a better more comfortable bench and use the reclaimed redwood from the deck I was tearing apart!

I was having a good time at the wedding and after a couple beers I told my friends with excitement probably more about redwood benches then they had ever known or would ever want to know... After awhile I gave them a break and joined everyone on the dancefloor but secretly I was really excited to get back to my shop and work on the design.

Once back in the shop I decided to borrow bits and pieces from various designs and focus my attentions on the seat – the source of what most designs had been lacking. Using the methods discussed by Tim Brown at IDEO design firm I actually made a quick prototype seat out of simple materials and modified it until it had a curve that mformed to the bum, curved right up at an angle supporting the back and felt amazingly comfortable. That was it!

The next day I built the first bench and it was pretty

successful. I found that using the older lighter redwood made it a little lighter and easier to move around. It is now on my porch awaiting test subjects and feedback!