Kalon is named for an ancient, philosophical concept of ideal beauty that considers moral worth and usefulness as inextricable from aesthetics. When an object is kalon, it is beautiful because there is an inherent goodness that radiates from each detail.

At Kalon Studios, we design objects to elevate and inform the way people live their lives. We also seek to redefine what constitutes good design by activating the ecosystem of impact that reverberates beyond the acts of ideation and creation. We design with intention and consider the political, social, and cultural aspects of our respective practices.

At this moment in time, it’s critically important to rethink how products are made. We’ve found that the truest innovation is in approach, specifically a regenerative use of existing, available resources that are often overlooked.

The Bough Collection offers an array of multi-functional, versatile, and heirloom-quality dining pieces. Our production practices support local communities, uphold craft traditions that are disappearing, and reimagine how we engage with material goods. There are only a few shops in the country that have the machining capacity to mill to the precision required by the collection, and by choosing to work with small-scale, often family-owned FSC-certified manufacturers and small teams of highly skilled craftspeople, we keep vital economic diversity, jobs, and skills in our communities. In so doing, we expand the industrial commons while amplifying our impact. Built from all natural, biodegradable, domestic materials, Bough’s material focus brings awareness to both the natural resource and to the hand that made each piece and celebrates the organic, evolving beauty of natural materials – like hardwood grain variations and imperfections. The pieces are milled, built, and finished by Mennonite craftspeople in Pennsylvania.

Bough offers hardworking furniture of enduring beauty that relies almost wholly on proportion and purity of form. Through its aesthetic design, Bough explores the meeting of the traditional and the modern, between delicacy and resilience, substance and lightness. The visual tension achieved by mixing heavy slabs of wood with slender, sculptural legs draws upon the functional beauty of Shaker furniture and Japan’s Sashimono tradition; the collection’s elemental simplicity is produced by complex, concealed joints of surprising strength. The complex joinery, the strength of which allows pieces to have a strikingly substantial feel while remaining visually light, was developed by Kalon over the course of two years. Blackened steel detailing was inspired by traditional Japanese metalworking and ironware techniques, particularly tetsubin cast iron kettles and the labor-intensive wara-ibushi patina technique.

By balancing traditional craft modalities with high-tech precision manufacturing and modern forms, Kalon invites a new chapter of contemporary, sustainable design.