Greener Streets - Brussels

Written By Robin Wade

by Richard Harris

The pedestrian only area around the historical core of Brussels has just been doubled in size. The actual core had been pedestrian only for years and a nearby shopping area was also. Now they have been joined so that the whole network of medieval streets is now off limits to vehicles.

The work took many months to the intense frustration of the local merchants, the shoppers and the tourists. To celebrate the completion the city threw a daylong party and even invited extraterrestrials. Now, the Unesco World Heritage site that is the Grand' Place and its surroundings is a pedestrian's paradise.

Greener Streets - Brussels

Robin Wade
Robin Wade Furniture is a celebration of nature—a melding of a forward thinking commitment to the environment and a quiet, harmonious design aesthetic. From his "slow studio" in North Alabama, award-winning wood artist Robin Wade designs and crafts one-of-a-kind handmade furniture. Years before a piece is ready to enter a client's home or a gallery, the process begins—naturally—with the tree. Sustainably harvested, each specimen of hardwood is flitch sawn into natural-edge wood slabs, debarked by hand with a draw knife, and stacked to dry, usually for years, before the final cure in the kiln. From here, Wade and his team use both hand and power tools to bring Wade's vision to life, and then finish each piece with a hand-rubbed oil blend. Each organic furniture creation by Robin Wade Furniture balances the raw, natural beauty of environmentally, locally sourced hardwoods with minimally invasive, clean lines—a juxtaposition Wade calls both rustic and modern. “I haven’t yet found a better artist than nature,” he says.
robinwadefurniture.com
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