Erling Hope
DESIGN • MAKE • COLLABORATE
About
I turn stuff into things. That’s my superpower. I take undifferentiated material and turn it into distinctive and meaningful objects, images and built environments.
It’s easy, really. All you have to do is harness decades of experience, and apply the most rigorous methods, to persuade the finest materials to conform to a design that engages the fullness of what it means to be human.
Easy.
Take the design of a kitchen, for example. A kitchen is both the site of improvisation and creativity, and a highly ritualized space, enacting the repetitive realities of life and death, of cleansing and transformation. The things we do here keep us alive, and mark the endpoints for the living things we transform—as if by some kind of alchemical magic—into completely new substances. The environment we build around these actions must add to the experience, aesthetically and functionally, and must be built to last for the generations it will sustain.
For over thirty five years, I have been exploring the ways that the design process can orchestrate a sense of enchantment, can seduce us into falling in love with the world again. How do we convince tree-meat to become geometry? Cajole a scribble on a napkin to become a functioning built environment? Coax frozen lava to serve as a countertop? It is an inherently immodest ambition. The material world comes to us already awash in meaning, and with no concern for our narrow agenda. Material doesn’t care what we want. Persuading it to bless our wishes is at times an act of rare and intimate diplomacy. That is why it is a superpower. Also though, also: I just make things.
I have been fortunate to have studied under and worked with some incredibly gifted people, who continue to show me new things and ideas. Because of their influence, I have been able to invent novel building materials, and develop new collaborative methods for generating ornamental motífs and artwork. I teach, conduct improvised liturgies and nonce rituals, and occasionally find “good trouble” monkey-wrenching the political nonsense that’s squandering our future.
Also, I have been called “a Tourist Trapped in a Local’s Body” by a teenage daughter. Though it was intended as a snide insult, I have adopted this appellation as a keen honor and my life’s highest calling. To be intimate with the world around me, but also forever a stranger.
Ethos
There is no such thing as "green design". There is only design. Anything else is ultimately a form of nihilism. There is no such thing as "fair trade". There is only trade: Anything else is a form of theft. Any aesthetic that fails to account for socially and environmentally sustainable outcomes, any design process that fails to incorporate green materials and methods, is inherently flawed and aesthetically corrupt.
In the past, we thought in terms of form vs function. Today, we must speak of form, function, and fairness. Does our use of materials embody a fair and just deployment of resources and regard for the labor of our fellow humans? Does it consider its impact on future generations? Does it enact a sustainable practice? How we make things expresses our values, and history will judge us by how we navigate this moment.
In my studio, we use only sustainably harvested or reclaimed hardwoods. Much of our material, such as locust, white oak, sassafras and mountain laurel, is harvested from die-back in local woodlands and cured in our facilities.
Engineered materials featured in our proprietary products are manufactured from scrap branches which were simply piled high and burned in previous decades, and fast-growing saplings. Plantations of these juvenile trees convert more greenhouse gasses than mature forests or longer-cycle tree farms.
Finishing materials are Greenguard certified with minimal VOC’s.
These practices, along with minimal sub-5% waste practices, LED and natural lighting, natural gas 95% efficient radiant heating throughout our facility, allows me to brashly claim that there are few greener fabricators at any scale.
Further Resources:
• Can I rely on sustainability seals such as that of the FSC?
Side Projects
Over the past couple decades, I have been exploring the contested and complex terrain that sits between the arts and religion in contemporary US cultural life. I have been doing this through a mix of writings, presentations and performances, workshops and projects. A selection of these is described below:
Writings
The Partial Glimpse: Pattern Perception and Collaboration in the Worship Environment
Prophetic Burden: Scriptural Traditions in Contemporary Performance Art
Give Corporations a Conscience: On Corporate Personhood
Presentations and Performances
Coming soon...
Workshops
Classes in woodworking design and fabrication are available. Information on request.