Uhuru Designs New Museum Sustainable Cafe

UHURU, a Brooklyn-based  design + build furniture company dedicated to sustainability has crafted some gorgeous furniture for The New Museum's cafe. The cafe's new design will feature communal tables, as well as intimate settings for conversation, enhancing the New Museum's Lobby as a gathering place for visitors and the creative community. The newly designed tables and stools were commissioned especially for the New Museum. The stools are made from scraps of hardwood collected from local wood shops and the tables are crafted from high-percentage, post-consumer recycled steel and aluminum and finished with a zero VOC powder coat. Attentive visitors will notice the shape of the New Museum building playfully seeded in the top of each puzzle-like Stoolen. The cafe's counter top, which displays baked goods, is IceStone, a durable surface made of 100% recycled glass and cement, also manufactured in Brooklyn.

After looking at the cafe's menu (designed by Birdbath, an "environmentally conscious" division of City Bakery) I noticed that livestock products like butter and eggs were still being used in the baking. Here at The Discerning Brute,  I applaud any effort to further sustainability, but I also must point out that the largest impact for sustainability exists within the food itself, and whether or not dairy is local or organic, the impact that the livestock have ecologically can simply never be considered sustainable. The ease with which those products can be replaced with more sustainable options is nearly seamless. Here's to hoping they include their vegan on the menu also! Heck, why not go all the way and make the entire menu vegan?