Boro Birch was my entry for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s annual Collab student design competition. It is a pencil case that combines the materiality of birch bark with the technique of Boro/Sashiko, an ancient Japanese practice of continuous mending over time. With this project, I wanted to look outside of modern western mass manufacturing to create a dialogue about sustainability and product design.

For 2023, we were challenged to design an object according to the design philosophy of Stephen Burks. Stephen Burks is a highly accomplished designer and architect based in New York. His practice seeks to combine the thoughtful craft and materiality of indigenous people’s with modern manufacturing, bringing bespoke craftsmanship to an industrial scale while remaining true to the culture’s that inspire the work. In his work, Burks works closely alongside indigenous people’s to understand, integrate, and elevate their unique crafts developed over generations of working with the materials found in their environment. Below is the final poster I submitted to the competition.