Shop Here: Stacklab
Photo by Naomi Finlay
Inside Stacklab’s studio is a giant chalkboard covered in schematic drawings of benches and table legs. In the back where furniture is constructed are table and band saws. And in the middle of it all is Jeff Forrest, Stacklab’s founder. His industrial and interior design studio specializes in custom furnishings – think spacious dining tables and CNC-cut chairs – but all made from city-sourced reclaimed wood. Although there’s a glut of salvaged tree trunks on the market, the studio takes the ubiquitous material and gives it a fresh twist – a desk is jazzed up with a hot pink base, and a dining table is supported by wishbone-shaped cast aluminum legs. Forrest clearly loves his medium; he perks up pointing out a section of red oak oxidized from an old bullet hole and a slab of beech that’s pocked with woodworm scars.
SHOP HERE FOR: Custom furnishings for home and business. Previous projects include a custom door made of exotic materials and mechanical moving parts, and a massive mosaic tabletop in antique hemlock for e11even, a restaurant at the Air Canada Centre ($30,000).
BEST BET: A walnut slab dining table with colourful tapered legs made from CNC-cut forms (from $4000). The legs come in different materials such as cold and hot rolled steel, cast bronze and cast aluminum.
By Samantha Edwards
