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Cuba Cuts: Bowls Made From Rare Century-Old Mahogany Tree

02.24.20 | By
Cuba Cuts: Bowls Made From Rare Century-Old Mahogany Tree

When you find something as rare as a Cuban mahogany tree trunk that was stored by numerous carpenters over 100 years, you want to make sure you use it right. Hans Sandgren Jakobsen has come up with Cuba Cuts: a series of 24 bowls made from the same tree trunk, each with its own unique carvings so that no two bowls are alike.

The bowls were created with little waste and are meant to last generations. The material was what fascinated Jakobsen the most: with such a unique and rare material in his hands, he knew he had to use it right.

He made raw ax cuts on the outside of Cuba Cuts as a window into the past, to show what it was like before modern methods made it easy to saw through large tree trunks like this one.

The designer and manufacturer made sure that little was lost: only a few millimeters of material was discarded between the bowls.

Keshia grew up in Singapore and moved to the U.S. to attend Dartmouth College. When she was living abroad after graduation, a chance enrollment at the Architectural Association Visiting School led to her becoming enamored with door schedules and architectural écriture. She's particularly interested in design for aging, rural architecture, and Asian design heritage.