Hasta La Ideas

Brooklyn naval history in a furniture line upcycled from local materials

After launching a furniture series made out of wood reclaimed from Coney Island’s boardwalk in 2010, Brooklyn design studio Uhuru takes up the concept again with their second “local materials” collection, this time using deck wood from the USS North Carolina—the most decorated U.S. battleship of WWII. Like the whimsical lines of the amusement park-inspired line, the War Craft Collection takes its design cues from its source material with clean, industrial lines and a nod to history.

Originally built during the ’30s in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the boat was the first new battleship to arrive in the Pacific and participated in every major naval offensive in that theater. The design of the table directly addresses the “inherently violent nature of modern warcraft,” modeled as it is after the 16-inch guns on the ship, a significantly larger barrel hole which represents an increase in response to concerns about Japan’s caliber limit.

The five other pieces in the “War Craft Collection” (each each limited to a run of ten due to the limited quantity of wood) will be on view 13-16 May 2011 at Noho Design District’s pop up in The American Design Building at Great Jones Lumber (45 Great Jones Street, New York, NY 10012).