iSurprise HK TimberBank

Touching home base - 埋舟

HK TimberBank was founded by art-chitect Ricci Wong after the 2018 super typhoon Mangkut hit Hong Kong, leaving behind a trace of fallen trees ready to go to landfill. In 2019 Ricci was asked to create an artist bench at the Kung Yim Tin Tsai Art Festival, for which he used the salvaged tree from the island.
Dedicated to the Hakka history, the wooden bench was meant for fishermen’s safe homecoming ‘埋舟’ – literally translated as ‘sailing boat touching home base’. The artist bench marked the beginning of HK Timberbank.

‘ 埋舟 ’ is a phrase still used by school children playing hide and seek.

Local to local

HK TimberBank is now a full-grown company that uses local salvaged wood from fallen trees to create design furniture and timber. A sense of locality is very much at the heart of the business. Often the product goes back to the developer, school or community that brought in the wood. A new addition recently added to the design, is blockchain tags for customers to trace back the origin of the timber.

Craftsmanship

Carpentry is not a Hong Kong craft, so Ricci is self-taught and dubbs himself as a graduate of YouTube University. Through trial and error, he now passes on the skills to a new generation of woodcrafters. Much needed, because with a steady supply of vast quantities of wood, the company is growing fast. Ricci and his team are exploring options to turn their modest workshop into a wood factory.

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