By Scott Boylston

The Emergent Structures Project is about sustainability, and for many people that means it’s about material reclamation, and little else. But, of course it’s about much more. It’s about people,  communities, commonalities, and collaboration.

The house above was built with brick from demolition sites around West Savannah, starting in 1964.The large-scale demolition taking place at the time was carried out to make way for the I-16 flyover that tore the fabric of African-American life along West Broad Street. While this misguided attempt at urban renewal had many negative results, Johnnie Powers and his wife Juanita found one way to make the best of the situation; they harvested discarded bricks from the ruins, and used them to build the house that they themselves had designed in the Carver Heights section of West Savannah.

Johnnie Powers will be 82 on Veterans Day, he’s still the Pastor of Richfield Missionary Baptist Church, a church he founded. He’s a retired postal worker, and retired military. Since graduating from Savannah State College  in 1949, he’s also dedicated a lot of his time to woodworking.

I met Pastor Johnnie Powers at a Hungry Club Forum of Savannah meeting, where he told me about one of his projects. He’s designed a modular furniture set, and has built prototypes (some can be seen on the front lawn of the first photograph, as well as below). He’s interested in creating a small-scale production system for his furniture, and then he envisions selling the finely crafted pieces to local shops, so that the shops can then offer locals and tourists alike a real taste of what Savannah has to offer.

Mr. Powers assembles a prototype of his 2-piece, modular loveseat. He's collaborated with another Carver Heights resident who's designed fabric-covered padding as a supplement to the bare wood model.

More than mere material reclamation, Pastor Johnnie Powers is what the Emergent Structures Project is about. If we can provide the Johnnie Powers of Savannah access to Strathmore Estates’ substantial wealth of seasoned lumber, and to help create an atmosphere in Savannah that is conducive to the flourishing of small-scale production business models that employee local craftsman and nurture regional loyalties, then Emergent Structures will have succeed beyond its wildest dreams.

This single seat comes with or without the leg rest shown here.

Let us know if you’d like to contact Mr.Powers.