Furniture. Interior and exterior environments

Our work is always informed by this philosophy. We are inspired by wood and will always promote the use of sustainable native timbers, but whichever material we use it has to be fit for its purpose and meet responsible environmental criteria. Where it comes from, and how, is as important as where it ends up! All the materials we use naturally inform the design and construction process, but the context of the making is equally important. We work in a not for profit co-operative, recycle all our waste and buy our electricity from a renewable energy supplier which builds its own wind turbines

We only use timber which is FSC certified or from a source where we can demonstrate chain of custody and ethical production. Where we use materials other than timber, we have to be satisfied that the ethical policies of their manufacturers meet our criteria.

We are developing an ongoing project to re-introduce the use of Sweet Chestnut in furniture making and exterior products. It is a fast growing hardwood harvested from coppiced woodland, traditionally on a 15 to 20 year cycle.

Coppicing is the management of certain species which can be cut right back and will shoot new growth from the remaining stump. This means that new growth is supported by a mature root structure and relatively fast. Of course, rapid growth means rapid absorption of C02.

Coppicing supports age old rural skills and livelihoods and allows light into the woodland which secures the environments of flora and fauna.

This beautiful timber was widely used in the past but, for a variety of reasons recent years have seen its use decline. There are efforts to re-introduce it in semi-manufactured form for structural framework and cladding, and it is still used in rustic crafts and fencing. Because of this fall from grace and despite the fact that it is widely grown in the UK and Europe, properly seasoned lumber has been hard to come by. We have now secured a reliable source with impeccable ethical credentials and will be developing the range of furniture in the future.

In its green (unseasoned) form, Sweet Chestnut is ideal for exterior use and we are actively promoting this, notably as part of a recent project where we designed and built a nature garden for a local primary school. We constructed large planters from the timber and these also served as supports for the fencing which was also in green chestnut poles. We were able to arrange for pupils to visit the woodland which was the source of their timber, and this gave them invaluable insight into the nature of trees and the habitats they support, as well as contextualising the end product. During the course of the project it became apparent that many children in urban environments have no conception of the countryside which surrounds them and have difficulty appreciating that what they sit on, eat at, hit balls with, play music on etc. has a connection with a growing thing. Hopefully, nature garden projects such as this will help to remedy this gap in their education! Download pdf

Contact Details

Phone: 020 8766 7865 Adrian: 07767 665585 Hugo: 07967 647256

Sign up for our Email Newsletter
For Email Marketing you can trust