TOUCH WOOD

Next-generation designers get a helping hand from timber specialist AHEC

- ROSA BERTOLI

During this year’s Salone del Mobile, we were delighted to stage a celebration of emerging talent in the worlds of furniture and product design (see page 166 for the result). For the exhibition – entitled ‘Class of 24’ and held at the Triennale – we called on a long-term collaborator, American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), which felt like a natural step, given its unstoppable drive to experiment with timber, and its continuous support of diverse approaches to making by next-generation creatives.

As part of the exhibition, AHEC worked closely with two designers, Giles Tettey Nartey and Eleanor Hill, of Parti Studio, to create new bodies of work in American maple. Made in collaboration with London-based furniture maker Jan Hendzel, the pieces reflected both Nartey’s and Hill’s ongoing visual and cultural design research, while highlighting the qualities and potential of the chosen timber. ‘American hard maple is part of a wider narrative of underused species,’ says AHEC’s European director David Venables. One of his missions is to stress the importance of considering these timbers. ‘There is a myth that trees live forever, but [by not using the wood], you’re leaving some of your most valuable material in the forest to decay.’