John Houshmand's Mulberry Bench
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 12.25.06
We first heard of multi-talented John Houshmand way back in September 2004; since then, he's moved into his own showroom in SoHo and continued to design and build very compelling furniture. The musician, sculptor, designer & artist creates tables, benches, shelving and other pieces made using solid, natural-edge slabs of wood that are mostly made from salvaged or sustainably harvested American timber; this Mulberry low table/bench (item no. 0052 in his collection) nicely combines smoothly curved steel with the randomly beautiful edge of the minimally-milled wood. Many of Houshmand's pieces offset the spare, calculated look of steel or glass with the organic shapes only to be found in beautiful old wood, letting the natural beauty of the wood take center stage -- a technique the designer uses to great effect. His website alludes to more new pieces coming in 2007; we're glad we won't have to wait long to see them. ::John Houshmand via ::Apartment Therapy
I love the furniture he designs. But the price tag does put me in a bit of an ethical quandry. Those gorgeous credenzas are almost $20k. Even in a luxury market, that's a whopper of a price tag. At what point is even a sustainably harvested or otherwise eco-aware product considered so expensive as to be wasteful?
The quandry comes in when I realize that this is largely a subjective value judgement. There are plenty of people that would say things I buy are unnecessarily expensive, even though there are no where near being in the luxury goods category.
So speaking ONLY subjectively then, I have to say that for me, a $20k side table would be conspicuous consumption.
its carbon negative to the ATM, so that's a plus. and as green chemistry comes thru, i would consider this about as green as a product gets.
but the idea that this is made in an art studio, far far away kinda bugs me. we seem to have moved so far away from the land that we need artists to bring us back?