Just because a piece of furniture isn't made of the finest mahogany/oak/cherry etc. around, it doesn't necesarily mean that the finished piece isn't precious.

And New York-based designer Chris Rucker evidently agrees, since he's been exploring exactly just what you can do with lo-fi material.

"I developed a fascination with distressed materials surveying furniture abandoned curbside near my studio in Brooklyn. The swollen press-board and peeling laminate spoke a language of everyday use, disposable fabrication methods, and cheap material slavishly imitating fine furnishings." says Rucker of the origin of these great pieces.

The revealed fakery inspired me to consider alternative materials. I tested the physical limitations of strand-board, a cheap construction sheathing, solving difficult problems of fabrication and design while working to expose the material itself as a major component of the work's aesthetic.

Incorporating plastic laminates, materials designed specifically to imitate, initiated a dialogue with strand-board that brought these experiments to full fruition."

The fusion of quality construction methods with inexpensive and unorthodox materials in Rucker's series not only offers an answer to discarded and decaying remnants, but has also resulted in some mighy fine work...