Tomek Rygalik has never had a commission quite like it.

The leading Polish furniture designer was tasked by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) with taking US red oak, a material he’s never used before, and developing products that exploit the species’ aesthetic and performance properties to the full. He was also not told what those products should be. What he created was entirely up to him.

Both Mr Rygalik and AHEC acknowledged it was a leap of faith – and into the unknown. But both were excited by the prospect and say the outcomes could be ground breaking – among them a unique sharing of designer and raw material supplier viewpoints and expertise, from which both could learn. AHEC also sees the collaboration potentially sowing seeds for wider appreciation of the value and potential of US red oak in the global furniture-making powerhouse and burgeoning design hub that is Poland. This, in turn, could have broader European market impacts for the species, including in the UK.

AHEC has given Mr Rygalik a “blank sheet”, said European director David Venables, speaking against the buzz of the sawmill at Morgan’s Timber in Kent, where the red oak for the project had just arrived. However, it’s a carefully thought out blank sheet, with a clear logic behind it.

“AHEC commissions projects every year to explore new applications and develop the market for different US species. This year the focus is red oak, and its use in furniture in particular,” he said. “There seem to be concerns about using red oak in Europe, not least in Poland. It’s partly due to perceptions about the colour, but also relative unfamiliarity compared to the lighter oaks, European and US white, which have been so widely accepted for so long.”

At the same time, he added, red oak is America’s most prolific hardwood, comprising 20% of the country’s vast hardwood forest, so, arguably, its most sustainable.

“The intention of the project is to bring the timber supply side perspective together with the designer’s perspective, so we can share a thought process,” said Mr Venables. “So we’ve been talking with Tomek not just about red oak’s characteristics, but about the supply story; its abundance, how it’s produced, presented and shipped. He’s feeding this into his design process and, he says, relishing the challenge. He was also excited by the freedom involved; being able to spend time researching the properties of, for him, an untried raw material, before he embarked on the design process.”

There was also a clear rationale to selecting a Polish designer for this task, and Mr Rygalik in particular.

“Compared to major Asian furniture producers, Poland uses relatively little US hardwood generally, yet it’s one of the world’s biggest manufacturers. It has a long heritage and considerable knowledge of working in wood and its producers today serve leading brands Europe-wide,” said Mr Venables. “It’s also an exciting time for the increasingly influential Polish design community. It really is blossoming.”

In Mr Rygalik, he added, the project has a dynamic designer, with an international as well as a Polish reputation. Trained at the Technical University of Lodz, New York’s Pratt Institute and the UK’s Royal College of Art, he’s worked with leading global brands, including IKEA, Cappellini, Moroso, Polish furniture labels Paged and Comforty and is now owner of Tre Product.

“He looks at where design, shape and colour are moving and aims to be ahead of that thinking, He seems constantly willing to learn and experiment. Critically he’s also very receptive of our environmental objectives for the project,” said Mr Venables.

Mr Rygalik identified potential in the timber, which is drawn from the south, centre and north of the US forest, as soon as he saw it.

“We love experimenting with wood generally, but I was immediately excited by various aspects of red oak,” he said. “It has great variety in grain, tone and natural markings such as knots, dependant on the region it comes from, and we explored these in our initial research and preselection phase.

I like the colour too. I use a lot of oak, but European and US white have become a bit bread and butter and can be a little cold sometimes. Red oak has warmth, which combined with the grain effects, graphically affects your perception of it.”

Mr Rygalik said he subsequently fed these various factors, from the wood’s supply story, to its physical characteristics, through his “critical and creative filters” with the aim of ultimately delivering furniture that “both retained the wood’s diversity, but also has a consistency of quality and design, and, of course, that excites people”.

He likes to play on themes of “longevity and timelessness” in his work, to create products that won’t go out of fashion or use.

“I also draw inspiration from travel, seeing how different materials and processes are used in manufacturing. I like to collide or blend various influences, for a multi-faceted result” he said. “Besides typology, structure, production method and materials, my work is also shaped by how people live and use things.”

For the red oak project, Mr Rygalik also drew on American and European wood furniture design heritage, “recalling the spirit of the great vintage design classics” from the work of Charles and Ray Eames to the creations of Enzo Mari.

“When you look at 50s, 60s and 70s design work, you see this wood with warm, rich tones and a lot of natural features. I was interested in referencing this, so that while the collection is new and contemporary, it also has touch points with these cultural themes.”

Where there is also a touch point between designer and timber supplier is in another key aspect of the project; calculating the environmental impacts of making the furniture. In common with other AHEC showcase and test-bed initiatives for US hardwoods in recent years, the Rygalik furniture project has been subject to life cycle analysis. From forest to finished project, all materials and energy inputs in the making process are recorded, with the end result a carbon and wider environmental profile for each piece.

“This is fundamental to the project and the stress was on considering these impacts right from the start,” said Mr Venables. “Making the most environmentally out of timber is not just about ensuring your forest is sustainably managed, it’s about designing and making products that use the material in the best way.”

Having clearly bought into this aspect of the project early on, Mr Rygalik has already expressed interest in using lower grade wood to ensure maximum use of each tree.

He’s also keen to broadcast the AHEC message on the environmental importance of employing the diversity of species the forest has to offer, rather than over-exploiting traditional favourites. “There’s such variety, yet we all head in one narrow direction,” he said. “I feel people generally are too detached from the process of making and sourcing of materials in the things they use and surround themselves with. Having the opportunity to communicate to a wider audience the possibilities available in the forests is perhaps what excites and triggers me most about this project.”

Mr Venables would seem to agree and said producer liaising with designer from the outset would strengthen that communication. “Starting with Tomek from scratch, the more deeply the timber’s story could inform the design process; the outcome being products that really communicate: ‘Here’s a timber that really should be more widely used in the European marketplace’.”