For KARANA Habitat, Hadinata and Omega Mas return to the lamination techniques developed for the original KARANA Collection but turn them to a different set of challenges. The bench and lounger had tested how far a continuous curve could travel and the new editions to the collection ask how that same hardwood can perform under everyday load, day after day, rather than as a single sculptural gesture.

Where the first collection was largely a material exploration, learning the hardness, grain and colour of red oak and cherry for the first time, KARANA Habitat is built on a more established fluency with the timber, extended now to include American hard maple. Omega Mas's craftsmen, already well acquainted with American hardwoods from the first collection, brought that experience directly into the new pieces: refining joinery for the dining chair, armchair and table, balancing lamination with structural demands.

The partnership between designer and maker remains the engine of the work. As with KARANA, the finished pieces are the product of close collaboration between Hadinata's design intent and Omega Mas's production expertise, a relationship that gives Hadinata room to keep pushing what American hardwood can do, piece by piece.

“Working with American hardwood taught us that a material can be strong and still move — the curves in these new pieces came from letting the timber behave the way it wants to, not forcing it. That's something we only learned by making the first collection.”  
Hendro Hadinata