Innovation

Fallen Industry finds the beauty in fallen trees and uses these trees to create unique and beautiful custom furniture pieces. All the trees that are used for this innovation are brought in from all over the world. Fallen Industry aims towards reusing before destroying. This innovation emerged from Paul Kruger revisiting the Hudson River. He began recycling the driftwood into sculptures and eventually decided to take on bigger projects that included furniture, tables, and fine sculptures. Paul Kruger was the only one involved in the creation of the innovation. Although he does his work alone, he depends on independent contractors for the fallen trees and other materials that are used for his innovation.

“There’s a lot of companies in Brooklyn that do custom made furniture. I would say that we specialize in live edge furniture and a lot of companies probably just have a larger ray of different types of furniture. We really try to keep and retain the natural beauty of the wood into the furniture. A lot of companies make live edge tables here and there but live edge is our focus and I think our customers know that and they come to us as experts.”

Fallen Industry’s innovation relates to a sense of purpose. Fallen Industry was created to find a new purpose for fallen trees. The purpose of Fallen Industry led to a unique innovation. This innovation is all about reusing fallen trees and turning them into unique and custom live edge furniture.

Inspiration

As a child, Paul played nearby the Hudson River and created walking sticks and swords out of the washed-up driftwood. Eventually, Paul began to revisit the Hudson River and became fascinated with the possibility of reusing the driftwood into sculptures. In 2012, Kruger started to take bigger projects.

The purpose behind the innovation was to show his work to the world at the same time that he could be utilizing natural wood that would be thrown away or burned. Therefore, Kruger found a way to show his creativity to the people and hoping that the people will start to realize the advantages of having a piece of furniture built from the actual nature instead of the usual. Nowadays what keeps Paul moving is the idea of growing and taking more challenging tasks and the trade shows. On the sculpturing business world, is very hard to get into the trade shows because is very expensive, but Paul believes that in a few years he will be competing on trade shows. Lastly, NYC is one of the biggest influencers on Paul’s work. He tries to incorporate things that he sees daily around the city into his own work.

“I would take inspiration from everything. Just keeping my eyes open. I’m based in New York here and there’s a lot of just beautiful designs, architecture and art. Every time I see things that I really like I think about how can I incorporate some of this into furniture designs.”

Overall impact

On the business side, the impact of this innovation was to become successful in his innovation and take it to the next level. Paul is doing just this! The impact on Fallen Industry innovation of the environment was recycling discarded and fallen trees and using it to make furniture. Giving life to things that seemed to be useless to the environment!

The short-term effects of this innovation was seeing if Paul could actually get this business started up and going, which he is well on his way with that. The long-term effects of the innovation was to become successful and to continue growing with this innovation and to continue to make a difference in doing so. As a long-term effect, Paul looks forward to entering more art shows and having his work become more popular. The evidence that this impact has occurred is his artwork being displayed in certain art shows already as well as his success in his company being that he is always creating new pieces of art to display and sell.

“Several, the art shows and getting into galleries and things like that. It is a little bit separate from that the furniture business but then it is not because using the same material and sometimes galleries want to have the design work which is really cool too such as a gallery in New Jersey that has 5 of my pieces. It is interesting that I can cross the boundaries of what is “art”.

Business benefit

Fallen Industry’s innovation has led Paul Kruger to run a very successful business with various clients. These clients include residential, commercial, and some of the nations top interior designers. Fallen Industry has been featured in the news and several trending designs and eco-conscious magazines.

This innovative approach to using fallen lumber and turning them into masterpieces has propelled Fallen Industry and Paul Kruger to new heights in the furniture world. His approach not only benefits the environment, but the unique approach also benefits all who purchase or have the chance to see his beautiful work.

Social and environmental benefit

Although Fallen Industry is a small organization, Fallen Industry is still making an impact in society and the environment. The smallest recycling can make a difference in the environment and society. By reusing before destroying fallen and discarded trees, Fallen Industry is making a difference in a positive way on the world’s ecosystem.

Recycling fallen trees reduce landfill waste and help conserve natural resources. This approach to recycling has many functions to the benefit of society as well as a conservation effort in the environment. Not only does this reduce the environmental impact of handling fallen trees, but it also serves as a functional use of furniture as well as a beautiful piece of artwork for whoever decides to be a customer of Fallen Industries.

Interview

Paul Kruger, Owner, Artist and Designer