会议时间：2018年3月21-23日
会议地点：柬埔寨 · 暹粒
演讲嘉宾：David Geoffrey TRUBRIDGE, David Trubridge Ltd

摘要：This is the story of my relationship with wood and trees over 40 years. You could say that wood has been one of the most important things in my life. Through what it offered, I am what I am now. For 35 years I have worked it, thought about it and designed for it. It is the most wonderful material and I am eternally grateful for the riches it has taught me.

Wood has no class distinctions. It can be worked by the finest craftsmanship into articles of extreme beauty and value that will be prized for generations. Or it can be roughly hewn into fences and packing crates. You can build bridges with it, or toothpicks.

Throughout my life I have continued to make, and later design, furniture and lighting out of wood, because of these qualities and because it is what I know intimately. I have explored every way of working it from early massive tables to the lightest of skin structures. The care of the craftsman has taught me to respect it and use it to the utmost. I find it painful to discard and instinctively will spend far more time than it is worth trying to use every piece to its maximum. This seems a common trait amongst woodworkers. My use of wood has also recently earned me the label of an eco-designer in Europe. This is not because I have sought it or used the term myself, but I think because there is a perception that wood is itself a natural, hence ‘eco’ material. Is this valid?

I will never claim any material is ‘eco’ because I think it is a word that has lost all currency thanks to greenwashing. It has been used indiscriminately to justify consumer business as usual, claiming a product to be ‘eco’ because of some minor bonus, despite every other, conveniently ignored, harmful quality. I have no illusions that anything we produce, in wood or any other material, can be truly sustainable. We are in a time of immense upheaval, when everything in the developed world that has been taken for granted, is now being questioned and re-evaluated. Many of our choices are based on aesthetics which have evolved over centuries, and are remarkably similar across cultures. We can only try to do the best we can.