Cultivating a circular economy with Joshua Ellis
Each year in Australia, the equivalent of 800,000 three-seater sofas, 1.65 million dining tables or 3.4 million coffee tables, are thrown away. Cultivated is a program designed to offer an alternative to disposable culture, honouring the integrity of authentic furniture and lighting.
What is Cultivated?
Cultivated is a restoration business for authentic designer furniture and decorative lighting working across all international brands. It began in 2013 attached to Cult Design, then in 2020 it was relaunched to be a stand-alone brand. It’s a way for people to bring their furniture to us when it reaches its end of use – we don’t say end of life – for us to refurbish it for them. If the client no longer wants the furniture, they can trade it for a store credit which they can use to buy something new, and we in turn sell their piece to someone else. It’s about keeping things in re-use and supporting that old adage ‘buy once, buy well’ through restoration and renewal services.
Who do you work with and why?
Part of our ethos is supporting local economies and local skills, so wherever we operate, we work with local craftspeople, be it upholsterers, timber makers, powder coaters, weavers, polishers, you name it. We also do this because we want to minimise transport emissions with everything we do, as they are one of the biggest things we create when moving parts, components and furniture around the country. If we keep things local it minimises long transport movements between capital cities.
What people and institutions come to Cultivated and how do they find out about you?
We have individuals, architects, designers, corporates and builders, so we can do everything from a single chair for a home to up to five levels of a building for a corporate client. We recently worked with the Auckland convention centre, for example, as we set up operations in Auckland this year in a little town called Whanganui that is five hours south of Auckland and the only UNESCO City of Design in New Zealand. It is a beautiful art deco town and full of artists and makers, so it was a great place for us to go and build a beautiful supplier base.
Why is there so much furniture waste and what can we do to mitigate it apart from take our pieces to Cultivated?
People can be a little bit more savvy and clever when they are procuring their furniture; maybe don’t run straight to the big box retailers and go to things like Facebook Marketplace instead. There are also some great second-hand websites and bricks and mortar stores popping up. Buy pre-loved if you love it, then do it up yourself. There’s a reason a lot of products in vintage stores are 40 years old – it’s because they have good bones, as opposed to the product that you buy that might last five years and then ends up in landfill. Also, look at things that have product stewardship so that at the end of use you can call the company you bought it from and they will pick it up rather than you chucking it on the street.
Learn more cultivated.com.au
Image credits: Photography by Fiona Susanto & Niel Prieto