Philosophy
Meaningful Work…
The overarching ideal when setting up Sand Buchanan that guides all other values. After a previous corporate career, I have taken this as an opportunity to reflect and redefine how I want to live and work and what I wanted to contribute to society.
There needs to be a purpose to the work, if every task is done to the best of your abilities it will result in a meaningful outcome. In furniture making this starts with the material and to ensure a meaningful outcome it should be of the best quality possible, an important part of which is a measure of its sustainability.
The material must then be crafted in such a way as to make sure the piece will last for generations and finally when complete it must fit the function and aesthetics desired, elevating the material by celebrating its natural beauty in a considered and honest way.
Sustainability…
Making in a time of over consumption and waste comes with an incredible responsibility to be mindful of what you are using and where your materials come from. Only by understanding this can you begin to assess the impact you are having by using them.
I only use timber sourced from the British Isles and as local to me as is possible. By knowing which wood, estate or street my timber has come from I can know why it was felled. In the majority of cases it is because of storm damage, disease, as part of a regulated woodland management plan or unfortunately from development, but the goal is the same, saving beautiful timber from otherwise being chipped, burnt or headed to landfill and taking the opportunity to preserve and present it as a beautiful piece of furniture.
Another aspect to this ethos is distance, we are all already familiar with the drive to buy food locally to reduce transportation miles. Timber is no different, imported temperate and tropical hardwoods can average between 8,000 and 11,000 km from felling to the end user. For our UK native timbers this is closer to 130km and when I look at where my more local timber comes from that figure drops to less than 50km.
Arguably it is no longer enough to be sustainably minded and if we want to see a real step change in our climate crisis then we need to think regeneratively. UK woodland cover is one of the lowest in Europe and the Government target for tree planting to tackle climate change is falling woefully short. I am striving to make Sand Buchanan regenerative by reinvesting a portion of profits into tree planting efforts across the UK.
Through my work I hope to play a small part in supporting the forestry industry in the UK and am a firm believer that if we don’t use it, we will lose it.
Honesty…
Hearteningly, it is no longer enough to pay lip service to sustainability and that is why honesty and transparency is crucial. It’s an important part of my journey with a client ensuring they know where their timber was felled, providing a chain of custody for the materials in each piece and a story to tell.
Honesty is also about how we use the materials nature has given us. My work celebrates the natural beauty of timber and of the tree that it was once a part of. Natural imperfections are celebrated, inlayed and patched to make them structurally sound while maintaining the narrative of the trees life, its struggles and the events it has witnessed.