Design in general is a response to a need and not a flight of fantasy. It is a cyclic process of creative suggestion and evaluation and modification until enough constraints have been addressed. The process stops when something is fabricated.

Mass production, the extreme of design optimization to create things as cheaply as possible by machine, is a very long way from craftsmanship where every movement of the hand requires skill.

The individual hand-made furniture shown here is an unlikely product from an Architect who began a City & Guilds Carpentry & Joinery course after graduating from the RCA. He has a Morrisian commitment to combining designing and making.

As is often the case, the furniture-making began with personal need, before others began to ask for particular pieces. Unlike a joinery workshop where wood is bought for the design, a new layer of constraints is placed on the design of the furniture by using only local trees mostly harvested by the designer from his own woods. The trees are sawn years in advance of knowing for what they will be used.

FURNITURE

Videos: