Meet the brothers: Morgan, Lincoln and Ryan. With the vision to revitalise the staid carpentry industry in Singapore, Morgan took over the family’s business in 2014. The theme of “family”, runs deep in his values; a value that he holds as utmost importance, is his bond with his employees. Together with his brothers, Lincoln leads the team through creative direction of branding, design tonality, and marketing; while Ryan runs the operations, leading a team of carpenters with his never-stop-trying attitude. In our interview, the brothers share about sustainability as part of their business ethics, as well as their thoughts on styling with Muji T-shirts.
Can you describe your profession / line of work? Roger&Sons are a team of ethical makers and mavericks who craft fine furniture and thoughtful objects. Our work is driven by inquiry and spans disciplines: furniture, industrial, and product design, as well as woodworking. Our crew consists of a mixture of craftspeople and designers. We ideate, conceptualise, prototype and fabrication; Our vision is to build and revitalise the local woodworking industry in Singapore through technology, innovative materials and processes as well as education. This is complementary to our mission in improving our skills and experience in designing and crafting fine furniture and objects.
We believe that it's our responsibility, to take good care and respect the materials we use; especially since these trees that take decades to flourish. These steps are important to us, for the longevity of the business, the sunset industry and most paramount, our earth. We hope that by working with sustainable materials, improving our systems and processes for a circular economy, we can rope others to do the same within the industry.
We have seen your initiatives in saving discarded trees by giving them a new life and making them into functional and aesthetic furniture with the wood that would have gone to wastage. Tell us more about the Local Tree Project and its success story. The Local Tree Project is an effort to salvage trees that are destined to die — in an environment where there isn’t room for the old and outdated. Currently, there are multiple sawmills in Singapore with massive stockpiles of abandoned logs. More than 100 logs arrive each day, with no immediate purpose other than to be turned into wood chips or shipping pallets someday.
The stockpiles are the result of felling trees for urban development. But because of a lack of infrastructure to process the logs into usable forms and a preference for importing wood, these logs are simply left to rot. Around 15,000 more trees are slated to be felled over the next 15 years. Against a backdrop of throwaway culture, the abandoned logs are rehabilitated into future-proof, durable objects. We wanted to change the situation and maximise their full potential. Instead of always opting for imports, why not utilise what we have in our backyard?
We started The Local Tree Project in 2019 to bridge the gap, spread awareness and tackle this issue. It is in our hopes that this initiative will change how the industry works sustainably and positively as well as to educate Singaporeans, especially those of our future generation.
We are hoping that this would be able to spark more interest in learning about our local trees and create conversations. We are spending time and money on research and development to come out with new innovative ideas for us to work on and maximise the potential of local trees. This will include working with some not so commonly used parts such as the bark, sawdust and branches.
With this knowledge, we also have plans to move into education and workshops where we can add value to students, industry professionals and the public. Clients who have partaken in and supported The Local Tree Project to name a few are Mandai Development, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, OCBC and URA.
Which person do you admire in modern/contemporary woodwork? R: I think it is hard for us to pick a person as there are so many people we look up to. We know that we are only at the beginning of our journey and we have so much to learn from the people around us. With the technology available to all of us, everything is so accessible and there are so many people within the global woodworking community, actively putting knowledge and wisdom together to come up with really crazy innovative ideas and new techniques.
Here at Roger&Sons, we believe a lot in experimenting, learning intricate techniques and applying them will not be possible without the woodworking community as a whole. We also draw inspiration from the wood itself, always letting the beauty of the material speak for itself. We tend to keep our design light so that it draws the attention of the eyes to the grains of the wood.
M: I agree with Ryan in that there is no particular person that I admire in woodwork. Woodworking is dynamic and with many different schools of thoughts. I have worked with many local experienced carpenters as well as learnt and watch many videos and tutorials of many woodworkers from all around the world. For me, it is taking inspiration from all these people and keeping grounded in our values while working in preserving the beauty of the material that we work with.