Most people buying a sofa or dining table aren’t thinking about where the wood came from. KARANA Habitat makes a quiet case for why they might want to. The three hardwoods at its centre – American cherry, red oak and hard maple – are not rare. They’re abundant, readily available and genuinely good quality, yet are still passed over in favour of the go-to names in furniture. Choosing them anyway means designing around what’s plentiful, not what’s scarce – a small but deliberate shift in what furniture-makers reach for when they want a piece to feel special.
The collection is the second chapter of KARANA, a collaboration between the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) and Jakarta-based designer Hendro Hadinata. When it first appeared at Indonesia Design Week in 2025, KARANA was a trio of sculptural showpieces – the Kuta Bench, Sanur Lounge Chair and Ubud Light – each drawing on the poetic, elongated forms of Balinese sculptor Ida Bagus Nyana, and rooted in the philosophy of Tri Hita Karana: harmony between people, nature and spirit. It read more as art object than furniture line.
KARANA Habitat moves that idea into everyday rooms. Four new pieces join the original three – the Klungkung Sofa, Negara Dining Chair, Negara Armchair and Negara Dining Table – turning a showcase into something closer to a full living and dining collection. The material palette grows too, with American hard maple joining red oak and cherry already in use.
“Each timber species has its own distinctive grain and colour,” says Hadinata. “Although they are different, they complement one another beautifully. Rather than arranging them in random patterns, we bring the three species together into a cohesive piece, creating a harmonious visual composition.” It’s a fitting description of the collection’s broader logic – different elements, deliberately brought into balance, rather than smoothed into sameness.
That balance extends to the forests these woods come from. AHEC has spent more than three decades as the international voice for the US hardwood industry, and its case for American hardwood has always rested less on rarity and more on restraint: selectively harvested, naturally regenerating forests that have more than doubled in volume since the 1950s, with growth still outpacing harvest every year. It’s a resource that grows faster than it’s used – a fact that doesn’t often make it into how furniture gets marketed to consumers, but one that quietly underpins pieces like these.
Home to more than 22 commercial timber species, the American forest offers plenty of choice; Hadinata’s decision to work with cherry, red oak and hard maple is itself a small act of advocacy for wood that is plentiful but underused.
KARANA Habitat was exhibited at Jia Curated in Bali from 13–17 August 2026.
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