Early in 2001, Jeff Lockwood, Director of Rainforest Relief’s Northwest Chapter, alerted RR NYC to the possibility that the unique and massive wooden floor built for the new Prada SoHo store might be made of rainforest wood. Jeff had seen a photo of the floor in an article in The New York Times, but the species of wood was not mentioned. Jeff went on a web search and Tim Keating went to view the floor in person to try to identify the wood by sight.

Tim and Jeff simultaneously found that the floor was zebrawood, an African species. By then, the unusual floor, dubbed “The Wave”, had become a modest tourist attraction in the area. The store had been designed by well-known Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and was to be a prototype for other stores.

Our research of zebrawood revealed that the species had recently been listed as threatened on the IUCN red list and that it is typically found in disturbed areas, often along riverbanks, in remote and inaccessible rainforests of Cameroon, Gabon and Congo. In order to log the species, vast networks of roads need to be bulldozed into formerly pristine areas. We also found that in order to get the striped zebra pattern, the wood has to be quartersawn, a very wasteful milling method.

The environmental impacts of this type of logging in west Africa are well known and tragic, eradicating species such as chimpanzees and contributing to over-hunting. One study showed logging to have precipitated territory “wars” among populations of endangered wild chimpanzees, ultimately reducing their numbers by 80%.

The vast majority of logging in Cameroon is done illegally, robbing the people of the country of the taxes supposed to be generated by the selling off of forests.

Loggers in Africa play a key role in the illegal trade in bushmeat — that is, wild game — which has become epidemic in the region. As more and more logging roads are bulldozed into pristine forests, greater access is provided. Loggers also give guns to hunters to kill wild game for their logging crews and then transport the hunters and their excess kills to the towns where the taste for bushmeat is driving a demand that is devastating wildlife populations. Endangered gorillas, chimps, pangolins, deer and other wildlife all make their way to the markets in cities and towns, with the assistance of loggers.

Indigenous forest peoples — such as the peaceful Baka “pygmies” – are being displaced, their culture being destroyed by often-violent contact with loggers who are eradicating the forest on which they depend for food, medicine and their spiritual culture.

So, armed with this information, we approached Prada.

After the initial contact and letter, Joan Roney continued to follow through with the company in New York, while Tim had an opportunity to talk to Prada’s architects in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the media began to pick up on the story. The New York Post ran a mention in the Gossip section, as did the San Francisco Chronicle.

Organized by Tim Doody, RR’s New York Actions Coordinator, a demonstration was set and a banner painted. But before folks could protest, Prada began to relent, sending an email stating that they would no longer use endangered wood for store construction. While promising, this wasn’t what we had requested, so RR downgraded the demonstration but went ahead and flyered in front of the store, handing out flyers that read “Rainforest Destruction: No Longer in Fashion!”.

Shortly after, Prada agreed to find alternatives to the future use of wood from endangered forests.

Architects and designers need to pay greater attention to the impacts of their designs and stop sourcing from endangered forests all over the world.

Rainforest Relief is planning a concerted push targeting the US architectural and design community, to alert them to the problems associated with the specifying of rainforest woods.