Amir Weiser | Owner
I got involved with interior carpentry after years of working on boats yachts (carpentry and working with composite materials (surfboards and sailboards)
I am fascinated by the place where meticulous planning and reality meet, just like the meeting point of body and soul.
Carpentry allows a great degree of freedom of action or thought – different craftsmen working on the same plan will deliver (slightly or significantly) different results. The dynamics of interaction with a client and a designer is bound to affect the final result as well.
A plan by an architect or designer (there are MANY different kinds of plans) sets off a process that may be short, or long, and thorough – sometimes we follow the original plan strictly, and other times it's an invitation to dig deeper.
Materials have a will of their own, properties of their own. The carpenter examines a plan, absorbed in thought, manufacturing the object in his imagination – the execution can be identical, or the beginning of a long sequence of trouble. They say Da Vinci and Tesla constructed their experiments in their mind before executing them.
As for myself, I turn each complex piece in my mind sometimes for months before I start working, and it stays there well after the project ends – I still remember tiny details from boats and projects I worked on 20 years ago.
The image of the carpenter sticking a branch in his mouth exists for a reason – when I plunge into construction, for a moment – or longer – I become that object: I try to identify weak points, to locate problems in shape and structure, and whoever works with me goes through the same experience – each according to their personal ability.
In some conversations with the people I work with, it is like diving together, with utmost concentration, into a particular, strange world. That's just the way it is.
I love working with existing or reclaimed materials, whether furniture parts or ready-mades. The high volume of unexpected challenges requires a high problem-solving skill and mental flexibility, a meditation in motion. This process is well manifested in the result.
The sentiment or nostalgy a familliar material or detail arouses in me and in every human being; the action of taking an existing object and putting it to a new use, cleverly and tastefully changing its function now becomes a personal statement.
From an early age, I started recycling and building things – my father is a mechanical engineer who used to make furniture for our house.
my sister still has a coffee table made of concrete and pine planks I found in a construction site near our house when I was 15 – a piece like any other, as far as I'm concerned.
In 2009, when my eldest daughter Malka was born, I decided to step away from the unhealthy materials (the majority of the materials used in the composite industry ) and started working with reclaimed materials - a long standing dcream of mine.
The setup I created for myself inside a Jaffa carpentry shop was right for this stage in my professional life. I could do accurate carpentry work, and at the same time, investigate old, distorted material, and integrate it in modern cabinetry , without affecting the functionality and precision of the final product.
In 2011, when my second daughter Atara was born, I joined my friend Ben Cabelli a talented industrial designer, in a studio on Salama road. We turned it into a carpentry workshop which we shared, until my business outgrew the small space, and I decided to move to a larger space with the equipment required to develop both artistically and commercially.
My yacht – I brought it to Israel in 2000, launched it around 2007, beached it in 2018, and in 2020 had it retire in Kibbutz Hefziba. In retrospective, this was a lesson in project management, restoration, challenging and complex carpentry, devotion and (at times blind) faith. Success and failure are relative terms, but I am certain that I wouldn't have had the courage to do half of the projects I did without this eccentric adventure, as well as many other unforgettable and absurd experiences. read more (hb)
In 1999 I returned to Israel after spending two years abroad – a year dedicated to surfing all around central America, and a year in Maui, Hawai, where I worked in a small, amazing factory, manufacturing and repairing windsurfing boards and surfboards. I am a self-employed carpenter, working with wood and composites since.
In 2000 I started studying for a BA at Tel Aviv University, majoring in physics and philosophy. With my scientific, analytic mind, I was curious about the mixture between the abstract and the accurate.
I successfully finished the first year, and left.
my fascination regarding the connection between mind and matter found other outlets.
In the following years I was working as a self-employed carpenter, fixing vessels, working with wood and composites. diving deep into a project of resuscitating an old wooden whaler sailboat of the Tel Aviv Sea Scout. I worked with Yigal Havkin (marine engineer, an eternal lover of the sea and yachts, a lecturer at Bezalel, a mentor), a cooperation that began when I returned to Israel; -i worked alongside him on various projects, yachts and more.
In yacht construction, interior carpentry is almost part of the structure – as boats are constantly moving, constantly 'working', the interior carpentry design must take this fact into account, as well as the boat's humid, salty environment, of course. For me, the transition to residential interior carpentry was, in many aspects, a downgrade. In a boat, you also have challenges of geometric forms
Throughout the years, I brought along on this journey people who share my approach and passion for working with matter and we have also broadened our design and manufacturing possibilities– the setup extended, becoming more elaborate. In 2015, when Paz, our third daughter, was born, the studio moved to its current location.
We have a CNC machine, and for most projects, we start planning on the computer, manufacturing much of it in CNC.
In 2004, after about five years of yoga and meditation practice, I enrolled in a Senior Yoga Teachers program at the Wingate Institute, from which I graduated in 2007.
Orit Sen-Gupta (my only teacher who was not a book) taught me not to harbor any specific expectations from the path road; to just follow it, staying attentive and loyal to certain principles.
If in the past I had had certain expectations, for example, to be an artist and display my work in galleries, or to only work with extremely wealthy customers on projects with limitless budgets, today I find I, and the people who joined me, are walking a much more accurate path, not only because it is reality.