The Suffolk Chair sits comfortably in my mind as an ongoing project. In the studio, our output tends to fall into two categories: work and play. Both are equally absorbing, but it is the latter that allows for a slower pace - space for curiosity, for trial and error - and, crucially, sits apart from the usual pressures of time and money.
The Chair began some three years ago, when we were given an oak tree in exchange for making three coffee tables for a family in Suffolk. Through this non-fiscal arrangement we met Joel, now our tree surgeon. Joel is a wonderful character: the sort of man who owns more than a hundred saws and has a pub in his garden. He has spent a lifetime working as a tree surgeon and more recently has begun milling the timber he fells for the furniture trade. It is an informal operation, but one that has given us access to some remarkable material- from ponderosa pine slabs as wide as a Fiat 500, to ancient Suffolk oak - all brought down by storm or disease rather than design.
A teacher of mine in Denmark once spoke, about the difficulty of designing a truly good chair. She described it as a lifetime’s work of small adjustments, of careful cooking, until everything is just so. Form, structure, and material must eventually overlap, like a Venn diagram, before the thing can be said to work. I am only a few years - and a handful of iterations - into my own attempt.
Chestnut and danish paper cord. Useful decisions made on form, but time to start designing how the frame is to be joined.