Cultivated Furniture

[Brett Chedzoy]

Something new for those with extra time on their hands!

DERBYSHIRE, England — Imagine a forest where trees turn themselves into chairs, lamps and mirror frames in a sustainable system that doesn’t leave a gaping hole in an old-growth forest, or a barren field after the trees have been harvested. Gavin Munro did, and then he made it a reality with his company Full Grown Ltd.

The 39-year-old calls it “botanical manufacturing” and it’s happening right now in a 2.5-acre field in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England. There, willow, oak, ash and other tree varieties are being coaxed via a complex system of molds into taking on various shapes that will end up as furniture made without nails, glue or joins of any type—they will be connected via tree grafts.

Munro says they discovered early on “that an unhappy tree won’t do what you want, just because you want it to,” and will send offshoots in the direction it wants to grow, which is usually toward the light, or sprout a shoot near a graft. In order to keep them happy, he says they “nourish and nurture the trees, employing as many natural, permaculture and organic methods as we can, as optimum nutrition means optimum growth.”

— Andrew Amelinckx

Modern Farmer

Read the full article The Furniture Farmer.