Rattan, TOU’s main material, is a fast-growing plant that can be turned into furniture lumber in 5 to 10 years. It is native to tropical rainforests and can grow up to several hundred meters in length.

We believe that rattan, which coexists with tropical rainforests to absorb and fix carbon dioxide, has the most sustainable potential as a furniture material for human use.

The use of rattan is a way to protect tropical rainforests and help achieve a sustainable global environment.

The rattan used in TOU comes from Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of rattan. There are about 30 different types, of which TOU uses the highest grade.

Manau (frame material)
The thickest and toughest rattan material. It has fine fibers and is covered with a hard and beautiful enamel. Mainly used for frames due to its high density and strength.

SEGA (connection parts, seat)
Rattan is considered to be the most shiny and beautiful. (Grade A) The surface is processed into a string-like shape called a peel and used for the braided part.

The factory is located in Cirebon, a furniture production area in Indonesia, where TOU products are carefully manufactured under the supervision of a person who has inherited the technology and quality control that was once established with a Japanese rattan furniture company. It is one of the few factories in the world that can obtain the best local rattan and manufacture products with the proven technology and quality which is equivalent to Japanese quality.

TOU’s furniture has been focusing on three concepts for design. The first one is structural approach.Due to its significantly resilient and stout properties, rattan is a material easy to be deformed by force. Therefore, a lot of reinforced members are required for parts where certain force is applied but TOU’s furniture has been designed aiming at realizing a simple structure with a sense of unity while trying to minimize the reinforcement to be recognized accordingly. It is a concept to create a “structure” with beauty in addition to strength.


The second one is a historical approach.Even though rattan furniture has its own long history, various kinds of wooden furniture across the world have much longer history of design. With essences learned from such history, TOU’s furniture applies new functionalities and ideas to such prototype models to convert into new rattan furniture. In doing so, we believe it possible to create new rattan furniture with originality fused with tradition and innovation. It’s a concept of “redesign” aiming at achieving authentic evolution of furniture.


The last one is a spatial approach.We have considered sincerely in what kinds of spaces TOU’s furniture is used, and what kinds of functionalities and concepts it should equip with. We have been pursuing appropriate balance between them assuming various places it is to be placed from Japanese traditional space such as Japanese inn to open-airspaces at resorts. Stacking function which is rare in rattan furniture as well as seat replacing system are functionalities figured out to match places it is used and people who use it.


KANEMITSU SIKKITEN

2267 Kisohirasawa, Siojiri, Nagano, Japan #399-6302

4-39-7 Izumi, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, Japan #168-0063

http://kinoyume.co.jp