The Ibuju Collection

A collection of modern wicker patio furniture made from a renewable material.

Colombian artist and designer Francisco Jaramillo founded Fango to both “tell stories through objects” and to explore concepts of culture, human behavior, and sustainability. The Ibuju collection is a great example of the firm’s thoughtful approach to design. Inspired by the Amazon, the series aims to not only highlight the impact of deforestation on Earth’s lungs but to also provide a green alternative to wood furniture. This modern modern wicker patio furniture collection comes to life in the rainforests of Colombia’s Amazon. To create it, the designer chose a special vine locally known as yaré.

Natural, durable and renewable, the fiber provided the ideal solution to craft a new kind of eco-friendly furniture. The vines grow on trees; local communities harvest them and then use them to make artisan objects. Apart from using this renewable material, the designer also connected the collection to the Amazon in an even more meaningful way. Working with local weavers, he translated the forms of ancient wood furniture into these modern wicker patio furniture pieces.

Crafted by hand, the range translates the curved and cylindrical forms of traditional timber furniture into yaré-woven geometries. The Ibuju modern wicker patio furniture series comprises a coffee table, a bench and a stool. All of them feature similar cylindrical and rounded shapes. While the coffee table has a circular top placed on crisscrossed yaré “logs”, the bench features two hefty cylinders as a base and a seat made up of three horizontal logs. As for the stool, it features two half-cylinders “stacked” on top of each other perpendicularly. An environmentally conscious alternative to solid wood furniture, this series also helps to support local communities and skilled artisans. Photographs © Juliana Gómez Quijano, Juan Silva.