San Leandro, CA
MANOS by Concreteworks
A collection of furniture + objects made in Northern California and meant to last a lifetime. We design our products to live in diverse environments, with the sole intention of bringing people together in meaningful ways. Made by hands, for hands to touch.
The Makers and Their Production Spaces
Manos offers a line of furniture products, made by hand in North America. As the product arm of Concreteworks, a custom manufacturer, Manos is equipped with three decades of conceptual and technical knowledge surrounding high-performance concrete fabrication.
We are a multidisciplinary group of engineers, designers, managers, and makers who know how to physically manifest ideas from concepts. Seated directly next to our manufacturing facility, our design team has their fingers on the pulse of how each piece is made. The proximity to the people making our products allows for endless opportunities of collaboration and experimentation. Our design begins with process and material, endlessly available within arm’s reach.
The Making Process
A mix of digital fabrication and hand-cast concrete fabrication.
The Production Model
Made-to-order product line
The Materials & Ingredients
We work with a combination of natural materials and hand craftsmanship. These variables produce subtle variations in color, texture, and porosity within each piece. We are advocates of letting concrete be concrete and believe that it gives our products personality. This is our material-forward approach.
OUR SUSTAINABILITY COMMITMENT
Concrete is synonymous with our built world. Harnessed for roadways, bridges, and other infrastructure, it is also at the crux of one of the most important dialogues of our time — humanity’s impact on the Earth.
While our scale may be small in this discourse, our production facility is committed to being an ally to the environment. We ask ourselves how the manufacturing industry can do better, and how we can do better.
We have taken long-term, factory-wide measures to limit our waste and our use of materials that are harmful to the Earth. We’re proud to utilize a robust water reclamation system, which allows us to reuse any water that has moved through production. We invest in permanent molds to limit our use of fiberboard and foam — and whenever foam is used, we down-cycle it for reuse at our factory. Our concrete mix incorporates recycled aggregates materials and when possible, alternatives to cement, such as industrial byproducts. Our product packaging consists of recyclable and post-consumer recycled materials. We are tuned into the scientific research around industrial-scale replacements of cement, and it gives us much optimism for commercially available “green concrete” in the coming years.
We challenge a world overflowing with season-centric, disposable design. Manos furniture is built to last, to withstand the elements and time with grace, and to be enjoyed and loved throughout generations.