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Pine-Beetle-Killed Forest Must be Harvested Quickly: Furniture?

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Premier Gordon Campbell’s new coffee table by Canada’s Straight Line Design is made of wood from destroyed and dying pine forests of his province in Canada. This is a material that is now in abundant oversupply.

As climate change has warmed winters across a wide swathe of the US and Canada, the pine bark beetle’s ecosystem has changed, and as a result the pine bark beetle population has exploded, and it is decimating 17 million acres of pine forest from Colorado to British Columbia.

InFormStudio also used this locally sourced dead wood to build the Ann Arbor District Library from the surrounding dying forest. But this Canadian cabinetry company has been putting the destroyed wood to another good use – in cabinetry.

First they carefully harvest the destroyed wood. Starting with 2″x4″s, they then split, cut, sand, tumble and polish it into a variety of shapes and finishes.

It has been used to make plinths, walls, tables and cabinets; it has been scuffed and finished and made into these polished wood “river rocks”.


It has been harvested and then unrolled together into tabletops with the diseased portions routed out into these intriguing shapes dispersed across the table surface, seemingly randomly, but actually marking the eradicated spots.

It can also be used to make rough-hewn surfaces for rustic walls, and to support the sides of cabinetry.

Many more designers need to think about more uses for this dead wood. There’s seven trillion square miles available. It is being made into a fuel for driving on, which is ironic. Too much driving is what got us into this mess in the first place! It is even being made into cardboard boxes, as leaving around is a fire hazard.

But surely, such a monumental change to our planet should have a long-term commemoration, as has been achieved here in these beautiful pieces.

Source: Inhabitat
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