BOUWER family

BOUWER is a furniture brand that adapts to the people who use it. You decide what you need. We make sure it is made well, made fairly and made to last.

  1. 01

    In harmony with people and nature

    Designed for the people who live with the furniture and for the place it lives in. Wood that ages with its surroundings and can, at the end, be given back to the conditions it came from.

  2. 02

    You decide what you need

    Not the brand, but the user sets the needs. A BOUWER piece adapts: add a seat, take one away, turn a chair into a sofa when life changes.

  3. 03

    Fewer designs, made better

    A small number of designs, each one refined until it is right. No fast furniture, but the best value for money we can offer. Made with materials from close to the workshop, which today is Belgium.

Robinia

IKAROS is made from Robinia, a European hardwood that is at home outside and grows close to the workshop.

Why Robinia

  • Made for outdoor use
  • Hardwood
  • Durability class 1
  • Best price-quality

A wood with character

Robinia grows in lively, curving trunks and holds a lot of tension. That makes it a wood that asks for craftsmanship: reading every trunk, choosing the right pieces and working with the grain instead of against it. In return you get a dense, hard wood that can stay outside for years.

Freshly sawn Robinia boards with bark edges, seen from above

Where Robinia grows in Europe

Robinia came to Europe from North America more than four hundred years ago. Today it grows across the continent, with the largest plantations in Hungary, where it covers about a quarter of the forest. Every country highlighted on the map has more than 100 000 hectares of it.

  • More than 100 000 ha of Robinia
  • Main growing region (size ≈ area)
  • BOUWER workshop

Pins mark the main growing regions, not exact plantations.

Where Robinia grows in Europe Map of Europe. Countries with more than 100 000 hectares of Robinia are highlighted: Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Serbia and Slovenia. The BOUWER workshop is in Belgium. Hungary≈ 465 000 haUkraine≈ 420 000 haItaly≈ 375 000 haFrance≈ 190 000 haBulgaria≈ 150 000 haRomania> 100 000 haPoland> 100 000 haSerbia> 100 000 haSlovenia> 100 000 ha BOUWERworkshop, Belgium

How IKAROS is made

Classic techniques, such as traditional Japanese joinery, combined with smart use of the machines in the workshop.

Being surrounded by garden architects fed a fascination for what wood does when it goes back to where it came from: outside, between weather, wind and time. The parts are joined without glue in the connections between modules, wedged with pegs, and finished with an outdoor wood oil.

  • Glue-free connections between modules
  • Wedged pegs that lock every joint
  • Add a module whenever your space changes
  • Finished with an outdoor wood oil
IKAROS side frames along a white brick wall in the workshop, with boards stacked on the floor

Build your own

One seat, two, three or a whole corner. Start with IKAROS and let it grow with you.

See the configurations