THE TREE is a set of furniture made from coppiced sweet chestnut wood harvested in Haslemere, Surrey. Each object is made from one single tree trunk, hand-split, and joined by local coppice workers. Finished with layers of lacquer and then sanded to smooth, the natural texture of the wood is preserved whilst splinters are removed.

Coppice is a traditional way of managing forests and sourcing timber sustainably. It has been practiced in England for hundreds of years, supplying local communities with timber for construction and daily use. In the old days, to build a traditional house, people needed to find specific trees of the same curve in the forest. It shows the intimacy between people and the local environment, embodied in this material connection between trees and living space.

The connection has been lost in modern society to the changes in the mode of production. This project aims at restoring the connection by bringing local trees back to the living space. Meanwhile, producing the furniture completely on a local basis could increase coppice practitioners’ income, keeping the traditional practice alive.

Photos by Jayoon Lee