Growing up in Alaska made me aware of a few different types of environmentally minded citizens. There are those who wear their “greenness” on the outside ex: hippies, tree huggers, etc., and there are those who express their commitment to the environment in a more subtle way. While this is a gross generalization, this same typology can be applied to “green” products. There is the chair made from recycled bicycles that looks like exactly that, or there is the modern piece of furniture that just happens to be made from sustainable materials in a sustainable way. Let us focus on the subtle crowd.

The Cuppa Coffee Table. Designed by Structured Green.

Structured Green, a green-minded furniture company based out of Savannah, Georgia, creates modern furniture with clean lines out of sustainably produced, certified or reclaimed, recycled or recyclable materials. They use water-based glues and finish pieces with food-grade tung oil and beeswax. The founders Mike Ayers & Raquel Anderson, humorously describe themselves as the left-minded and right-minded brains of the business which started with a desire to make attractive furniture built with environmental sensitivity.

“We do not have air conditioning (and that’s saying A LOT for Savannah, GA) we are going 100% Carbon Neutral, we have dual flush toilets, a full recycling program and are running as close to a paperless office as possible” – Structured Green. On the outside, Structured Green’s furniture looks like the well designed modern furniture one would see in the catalogues of Design Within Reach, but the design brilliance is deeper than aesthetics. Their “drop” series has a particularly cool story. They use the discarded “drops” from the wood working floor and combine them to make stunning striated tables. Availability of “drops” determines the pattern, from river recovered cypress to reclaimed mahogany to reclaimed bamboo, each design is truly dictated by the environment.

via Treehugger