Like fresh green shoots emerging from the scorched earth, UM Project‘s stylish collection of furnishings for the Reclaim NYC movement is testament to the adage that whenever there is destruction, rebirth will always follow. The destruction in question was wrought by Hurricane Sandy, and this initiative is using the debris from the disaster to fashion new objects in creative defiance of the recent force majeure.
UM Project’s work is entitled Après Collection, and is comprised of three lamps and three… well UM are calling them vessels, so that’s good enough for us. Using parts mainly found after the storm in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the designers have used all sorts of rescued materials – from punctured steel, an old electrical junction box, to some re-turned ash and maple – to make the objects, and the result is an industrial yet pleasingly subtle and attractive set which is being raffled to raise money to help UM’s fellow furniture design chums Token get back on their feet after they were hit hard by the hurricane.
The practical yet urbane embodiment of New York’s indefatigable spirit.
Photography, Francis Dzikowski/Esto
