Danko

Our Mission: To make furniture a positive symbol of Sustainability ……..to Obviously Manifest Green Materials

Historically, furniture design has always been a visual reflection of the ideals and values of its time. In fact, every style tells a story. So how come “green design” does not tell a story? The truth is “green design” is really just green ingredients. Now if the green ingredients are obvious and a visual part of the design, that’s “green design”! It tells a story. To this end, the DANKO mission is to make furniture that is obviously green. The story we want to tell is that sustainability is fun and optimistic. We also want you to realize its value in terms of comfort and common sense utility. Each of our products tells a visual story about sustainability. They are positive symbols. Listed below are 7 design attributes that can be seen as visual qualities.

1. Obviously Manifest Green materials and technologies

2. dematerialize the object

3. romance, intrigue, enchantment

4. interpret traditional styles to OMG design

5. employ the most environmentally benign materials

6. be designed so materials can be easily recycled and not downcycled

7. have small carbon footprint

8 reasons why Danko Designs Obviously Manifest Green

1. Furniture that is ply-bent is obvious. Ply-bending yields 8-10 times more high value wood from a log than solid wood manufacturing. The single tree below represents the amount of wood it takes to yield a single solid wood chair. By contrast the same tree will yield 9 ply-bent chairs solid vs. plywood resource efficiency

2. The energy used to convert wood from a raw material to a finished product is minuscule when compared to any other industrial (see carbon footprint for materials above)

3. Wood is one of the few industrial materials that adds oxygen to the biosphere in its lifecycle

4. Currently, in the United States, hardwood forests grow 82% more volume every year than is harvested, lost to fire, wind, insects and disease.

5. Wood possesses a unique natural warmth and richness not found with man made materials.

6. Ply-bent furniture can outlast solid wood furniture.

7. Re-purposing post industrial seat belts: while it may be obvious to most people that our belted chairs are seat belts, it may not be obvious that they are overruns/remnants seeking another purpose. Further, webbing chairs with seat belts is a far superior alternative for the environmentally problematic use of urethane foam/fabric for seat suspension. Now that you know why webbed seats are OMG, you will be able to tell the difference between what is really green and what is not as green.

8. The Nue chair seat and back rest is made from Hollow Core (HC) polypropylene panels. This plastic is #5 on the recycle chart. It is lightweight, very strong, uses minimal resources, and the infrastructure to recycle is already in place. HC panels are manufactured by either extruding or rolling layers of plastic film. These panels were originally developed by and for automobile companies to close the resource loop in their material handling. They were designed for reusable/recyclable packaging. Though attractive and inexpensive, this material has previously been considered an industrial material. Little consideration has been given to consumer uses. However, recent experimentation with this material by Peter Danko has proved it to be a better environmental substitute for many panel applications now requiring plywood, Medium Density Fiberwood (MDF), or chipboard.