Growing Furniture

Train and graft a tree for half a dozen years or so and you have strong, local, one piece (tree) furniture.

One piece wood chairs, no joints. Partially planed.
The first chairs are expected to be in galleries mid-2017.
by FullGrown, UK.

One piece tree chair.
The trees are harvested in winter and then allowed to dry before planing.
The farm is currently growing furniture in willow, ash, oak and sycamore.
FullGrown, Derbyshire, UK.

These chairs are grown upside down and the exposed cut trunk (up top) reveals the age of the chair. FullGrown, UK.

Gavin Munro uses ancient techniques combined with modern technology to grow, graft, prune and nurture living trees into furniture. The trees are trained to grow over specially made forms, and at certain points they are grafted together so that the chair grows into one solid piece. FullGrown, UK.

Gavin pruning a tree table.
FullGrown, UK.

Amazing one piece tree table.
FullGrown, UK.

Tree table.
FullGrown, UK.

Tree Lamps.
FullGrown, UK.

One of the first tree lights.

Tree lights growing around molds on the farm.
Some lamps and mirror frames will be ready spring of 2016.

Tree on form.
Good picture showing how back legs are being grafted.
The roots will be reused for subsequent chairs.
FullGrown, Derbyshire, UK.

This is how Gavin first grew his chairs.
Starting with four willow plants, one as each leg.
He later changed it so that one stem as the source of the whole chair.

Their first chair was made from Willow (Salix Viminalis).
See a video about Gavin’s work here: inspirationgreen.com/growing-chairs
FullGrown, UK.

Chair of pear wood from a production orchard.
Years of pruning created this shape.
For sale, Wolfheze, Netherlands. onthout.nl

Tree Stool grown
Dr Cattle gives lessons on stool growing.
Dr Christopher Cattle.

Tree Chair.
furnitureatadamsmith.blogspot.nl

Upside down willow chair.
Branches growing from a willow trunk formed into legs.
Trunk was cut and then legs bound and chair inverted.
By Dutch designer Floris Wubben.

Growing a living willow chair.
stoneartblog.blogspot.com

Chair Farm by Warner Aisslinger, Berlin.
Willow grown in a steel frame in an agricultural lab.
aisslinger.de

I would imagine the wooden seat will eventually crack.
Found on pinterest, no source.

Living tree chair
by Peter Cook and Becky Northey, Australia.
pooktre.com

Living tree table
by Peter Cook and Becky Northey, Australia.
More images on their website: pooktre.com

Living tree furniture
by Peter Cook and Becky Northey.
More images on their website: pooktre.com

Tree bench by Richard Reames.
Bending stems, tying and grafting with all joints cemented by nature….
arborsmith.com

“The Chair that Grew”
John Krubsack planted box elders in 1907 and harvested the living chair 11 years later in 1918. He grafted trunks together to create the back, seat, legs and arms. He originally planted 32 trees. The chair is still in perfect shape in a furniture store in Wisconsin. wikipedia.org

Some tree species that would be good choices for tree furniture:

Alder
Ash
Beech
Cherry
Guava
Maple
Sycamore
Willow

How to grow a chair from saplings: arborsmith.com

About Grafting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting

– See more at: https://web.archive.org/web/20160402181058/https://www.inspirationgreen.com/growing-furniture.html#sthash.dUt0YRhX.dpuf