'Bodging' may not sound like the approach taken by tomorrows Furniture Designers, but a group of Furniture students led by William Warren recently spent several days in the forest.
Date: 27 August 2014
'Bodging' may not sound like the approach taken by tomorrows Furniture Designers, but a group of Fda and BA Furniture students led by William Warren recently spent several days in the forest doing just that.
Bodging, or green woodworking is working with fresh cut timber with hand tools in the woods. It's a very old English furniture making tradition most remembered for Windsor chairs but also producing lots of agricultural tools, ladders, baskets and on a large scale, timber framed buildings.
The student trip was to woods near Chelmsford in Essex owned by furniture makers Katie and Nick Abbott, who also gave excellent instruction to the students.
The five students who took part designed and started to make a chair, a babyseat, a clothes horse, a small table and a coat rack, and some of the pieces will be completed at the furniture workshops in The Cass. As well as the furniture making the group enjoyed some wild swimming and outdoor cooking.
Talking about the experience, William Warren said, "I've been interested in Bodging since my trip to the woods with the Bodging Milano project a few years back. I've since designed three windsor chairs, for production along with tables, stools, coat stands, and a lamp which have been sold in John Lewis, Liberties and Heals. It sounds like we've been invited back again next year which is great news."
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