Dartmouth College manages approximately 27,000 acres of forestland in the Second College Grant in northern New Hampshire. Kevin Evans is the director of woodland operations for the Woodlands Office. In this video, he talks about making hard maple furniture from some of the timber harvested from Second College Grant in partnership with DCI Sustainable Furniture. He also discusses managing the land with carbon sequestration and sustainability in mind.
Project Spotlight: Three San Diego Navy Bases
Naval Base San Diego is one of the biggest Naval Bases in North America. Naval Base Point Loma and Naval Base Coronado–also based in San Diego–are significant bases. We recently performed installations at all three facilities and decided to compare the orders, side by side, as a case study to better understand the benefits of their respective furniture choices. As you can see from the item lists below, we developed …
Avila Construction & Farm Worker Housing – Case Study
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck chronicles the travails of an Oklahoma family who travel West during the Great Depression to escape the Dust Bowl. Lured by the promise of well-paying farm jobs, they arrive in California’s Salinas valley, the so-called “Salad Bowl of the World.” Magnifying their woes, these migrant farmworkers encounter predatory employers, overcrowded camps, desperate living conditions, and destitution. You might think these conditions relate to …
Dartmouth College’s “Forest to Dorm” Project
This article was originally published by The Northeastern Loggers’ Association in the December 2023 issue of Northern Logger Magazine. Reposted with permission. Story and Photos By Ross Caron. At the start of this fall semester, students who moved into Dartmouth College’s Andres Hall were greeted with beautiful brand-new wooden furniture made from trees harvested on Dartmouth’s own land. Each student in the dorm was issued a bed, desk, dresser, and …
Case Study – University of Pennsylvania Stouffer Hall
Overview DCI partnered with Atkin Olshin Schade Architects and Advanced Office Environments to furnish Stouffer Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. Features The furniture was composed of solid oak construction. The custom and ADA compliant wardrobes featured plywood sides. We assembled the wardrobes in the bedrooms bolting together two cabinets. The beds have a high-low configuration allowing students to hang their legs off the end of the bed. The University …
Case Study – Dartmouth and DCI’s Model of Circular Design
Over the last quarter century, a fascinating model of cradle to cradle product design has been unfolding in the New Hampshire North Country. In partnership with DCI—one of New England’s largest and oldest contract furniture manufacturers—Dartmouth College harvests trees from its own forest through its sustainable forestry program and DCI turns those logs into lumber and then long-lasting hardwood furniture. We then install this solid maple furniture, fashioned from Dartmouth’s …
DCI Awarded SCS Indoor Advantage Gold Certification
Indoor air quality directly impacts student cognition. The science on that is clear. For years, DCI has made this issue a priority, ensuring that our furniture does not contribute in any way to poor indoor air quality. Why is this important? Because furniture frequently contributes to poor indoor air quality by off-gassing harmful chemicals called VOCs (volatile organic compounds). This is why DCI recently sought and was awarded the SCS …
Case Study: Turning Empty Houses Into Homes With Chicago Furniture Bank
Where do people go when they can’t afford furniture? In Chicago, there’s a remarkable organization called the Chicago Furniture Bank (CFB). And it helps individuals and families who are transitioning out of homeless. In their own words, “CFB breaks the cycle of furniture poverty by transforming an empty house into a home” through providing folks with high quality used furniture. In the Fall of 2022, DCI was lucky enough to …
Case Study: Building Durable Steel & Wood Beds for Fort Sam Houston
Over the years, DCI has worked on numerous projects with Fort Sam Houston—a joint Army and Air Force Base based in San Antonio. Recently, the Base approached us with a new request. They were looking for a solution to replace their antiquated Captain’s Beds. Design Update: Captains Beds They were interested in a fresh contemporary design that both centered the strength of steel while softening the cold institutional feel of …
How DCI Is Responding To Plywood Supply Chain Disruption
Like many contract furniture manufacturers, DCI is feeling the impact of lumber shortages because of global supply chain disruption. For contract furniture manufacturers like us, plywood is a key issue. Baltic birch plywood from Russia, a mainstay for case goods, is no longer available because of the war in Ukraine. But even before the war, tariffs on Chinese imports put huge demand on local plywood supplies. When that demand intersected …