What happens when design systems meet upcycled timber? A collaboration built on curiosity, transparency and the courage to make things differently.

A meeting of minds and materials has sparked a new chapter in Australian design, one shaped by curiosity, resourcefulness, and a shared belief that circular thinking belongs in everyday practice, not in theory.

When designer–maker Jem Selig Freeman and artist Laura Woodward founded Like Butter, they wanted to build systems that could move, adapt and grow with the people who use them. Their KittaParts system, a modular shelving framework, does exactly that. It’s furniture engineered for change, designed so that assembly and disassembly become part of its language rather than a muted afterthought. 

That mindset found its match in Crafted Hardwoods, a team that has intentionally stepped away from the traditional timber model. They specialise in the resources the timber industry tends to sideline, transforming low-grade veneers and overlooked fibres into a material that’s genuinely fit for design. With world-first technology, those overlooked resources become architectural timbers that perform as well as traditional hardwoods, but tell a very different story of origin.

The collaboration between the two brands was a natural alignment – and it began with something as contemporary as it is human: an Instagram discovery and a message sent out of genuine curiosity.

A shared material language

Freeman recalls how sourcing timber for KittaParts exposed the frustrations and limits of the traditional supply chain. The Tasmanian Oak dowels originally used for the system were beautiful but came with opaque answers. Certificates were shown, but transparency was missing. “When Crafted Hardwoods popped up with their ethos – transparent sourcing, upgrading low-value materials – I jumped on it,” he says. “It was exactly what we were looking for, a supplier who was as excited about what we’re doing as we are about what they’re doing.”

That trial order of dowels became the foundation for a working partnership. Crafted Hardwoods’ upcycled Blackbutt now anchors every KittaParts system, connecting frames with consistency and trust. “We joke about heirloom flat packs,” Freeman says, “but that’s what we’re making. Furniture designed to evolve with you. The bookshelf bought for a teenager should adapt and move into a sharehouse, then reconfigure for another room. That adaptability is what we’re all about.”

At the heart of it all is the dowel. More than a joint, it’s a statement of precision and repeatability, the part that allows confidence in the system’s longevity. If the dowel fails, the structure does too. Freeman laughs as he describes the “Jem test”, a hands-on ritual of trying to break prototypes. “The real test came when customers started getting the new Crafted Hardwoods components. We’ve had zero issues. It’s slipped into the range as if it’s always been there.”

Rethinking supply, rebuilding trust

For Crafted Hardwoods’ national sales manager Darren Minto, collaboration with designers like Freeman is critical for validating new materials. “It takes a certain willingness and early adopter mindset to trial something new,” he says. “So much of industry in Australia runs on business as usual until a product runs out. We need people like Jem to blaze the trail and prove there’s value in innovation.”

Crafted Hardwoods’ process converts low-value veneer into solid-section engineered timber in minutes, bridging science and craft with a distinctly Australian pragmatism. It’s fast, scalable and driven by a startup mentality that values flexibility over convention. “We’ve got a bucketload of willingness and ambition, and we’re built to try things,” Minto says. “When someone comes to us with an idea, we see it as a chance to push the material further – often it becomes proof of concept, and that’s really valuable to us.”

That attitude reflects the circular values both companies share. Longevity, adaptability and openness are built into their processes, not added as branding. The collaboration centres on a shared mindset, showing how design and material innovation can work together to shape a more connected and enduring practice.

The ecosystem of local making

For Freeman, the partnership feels like a rare alignment of values. “Innovation in the material space is so critical for design and manufacturing in Australia,” he says. “Having a supplier like Crafted who’s easy to deal with, transparent and genuinely excited about what we’re doing feels like talking to a peer. We swap ideas, even share IP, because we trust each other. That’s how resilience happens here, through collaboration, not competition.”

That sense of mutual learning runs deep. Minto describes Freeman as “an engineering and workflow genius who happens to make furniture”, a compliment that captures Like Butter’s design philosophy: systems thinking disguised as simplicity. By working with components that are few in number but infinitely reconfigurable, the studio builds complexity from clarity. The KittaParts dowel connection makes each unit both portable and conceptually circular, designed to be disassembled, repurposed and reimagined.

For Crafted Hardwoods, that design precision becomes proof of what their material can achieve in the hands of agile makers. “When you know how a product will behave at the end of its life, you can start planning for it,” Minto says. “That’s real circularity.”

Where design meets material science

Both teams represent a growing generation of Australian makers who see collaboration as a design tool in itself. Their work points toward a future where design thinking and material science merge into a shared practice, one that values transparency as much as texture, and ethics as much as aesthetics. In that future, adaptability translates as intelligence at work.

As Freeman puts it, “When small teams share ideas, push boundaries together and stay transparent, real innovation happens.”

What began as a fleeting Instagram message has become a working dialogue about what design can do when curiosity drives the process. Crafted Hardwoods and Like Butter have built a partnership where ideas are shared, tested, stretched and refined — much like the materials they work with. And if their collaboration so far is any indication, the most interesting ideas are still ahead.

See what’s possible with upcycled timber at craftedhardwoods.com
Explore adaptable design with Like Butter at likebutter.com.au

Read how Crafted Hardwoods challenges the obsession with select-grade timber by inviting designers to embrace character and variation, on ADR.