WHY WE MAKE AKO

We have become frustrated with how easy it is to fill our lives with things that do not last, with things that do not sustain us. We worry about social media, artificial intelligence, chemicals in food. But we speak less often about the material side of everyday life: plastic everywhere, mixed materials everywhere, objects that are difficult to repair, difficult to separate, and not meant to stay with us for very long.

This is also part of the climate problem: the material economy of steel, cement, chemicals, and plastics. The things we pull from the earth, refine, package, ship, and turn into objects that are quickly replaced.

And here is what especially annoys us: we have made it normal to buy objects that arrive as waste. You open the box and it is already a small landfill. Plastic bags. Mixed screws. Brackets. That one tool you will keep for six years, then never find when you need it. Instructions written by artificial intelligence pretending it has hands.

Then there is the underside of furniture. The visible surface may look calm and resolved. Underneath, you often find weld spots, screw heads, staples, clips, brackets, and quick fixes. A lot of furniture is designed like a mask: a good face, and then a hidden story beneath it. We have accepted “it works” as a moral argument. We have accepted hidden complexity as normal.

As architects, when we object to a concealed detail or something that does not line up, we often hear: “Only two percent will see that.” We like to say: that two percent matters. Details matter. Undersides matter. Material choices matter, not just visually, but physically, chemically, and environmentally.

Somehow we have been convinced it is fine to ignore all of this. Like living on potato chips and candy. You can survive. But it is not sustenance. It is not nutritious.

That is what AKO is about for us: sustenance. A clear object. Real material. Real constraint. Fewer ingredients.

We are not anti-technology. We use digital tools and CNC precision for repeatable geometry, predictable tolerances, and accuracy. But the logic is not “tech.” The logic is traditional, with an upgrade. It is joinery and composition: structure without adding a second language on top of the object, like an annoying bag of hardware. High precision with low complexity.

The DADO and Dovetail systems are built from solid wood parts that lock together through joinery. No screws. No tools. No hardware. One structural material. Wood is renewable, low-toxicity, and still alive in a way. It is also difficult. It moves. Every piece has grain, tension, and quirks, like a fingerprint.

That difficulty is part of the point. We use joinery, especially sliding dovetails and the patented DADO locking feature, to work with wood rather than pretend it is something else. AKO asks whether furniture can be materially clearer, structurally more honest, easier to understand, and more worthy of keeping.

One material. Traditional joinery with invention. Flat packed. Made to last, and made to move with you. Flexible, like our lives. Flexible like wood.