Alice and Gavin Munro grow their creations upside down, in a process that they say typically takes between six and nine years, before each item is dried for a year. (Tom Maddick via SWNS)
By Adam Dutton
An eco-minded couple is taking sustainability to the next level running Britain's first "furniture orchard" — where chairs are grown on trees.
Alice and Gavin Munro first started harvesting their bespoke chairs on a two-acre Derbyshire farm back in 2006.
The pair has spent the next 20 years perfecting the practice of sculpting living trees to grow upside-down into the shapes of intricate ready-made seats.
The process typically takes up to nine years per chair and involves pruning young tree branches as they grow over a special metal frame to form the shape.
Branches are then sliced and their bark brought together so that the shape can grow as one solid form.
The 'furniture orchard' where chairs are grown on trees. (Tom Maddick via SWNS)
Each item is dried for a year after being chopped before and they have been sold both to customers and more recently as artworks valued at £75,000 (more than $100,000).
The couple, of Wirksworth, Derbys., are now planning to launch a program in the near future to help people grow their own chairs.
They have also used the same technique to craft benches, lamps and tables.
Gavin, 51, who runs the business called Full Grown, said: "We're 20 years into what might be a 50 or 100-year journey.
"We started out by trying to think what is the most subtle interaction we can have with the world in order to create useful, beautiful objects — we wanted to collaborate with nature.
Branches are sliced and their bark brought together so that the shape can grow as one solid form. (Tom Maddick via SWNS)
"You're basically taking a piece of bark from one branch and bringing them together, so they grow together.
"We use a frame, it's sort of a long oblong nearly so it can stick and shape properly.
"When it's been coppiced with the water shoots coming out there are specific times of the growth where it's easier to bend.
"You're effectively tying the branch to the frame with these garden ties.
"It's absolutely bizarre to do — it's like bonsai meets 3D printing.
"We've tried growing a few different items of furniture, but it's hard enough getting the chairs right.
"We're focusing on chairs and a bench design which seems considerably easier.
"We experiment to help figure out how each species reacts to what we want to do.
Alice and Gavin Munro's process involves training and pruning young tree branches as they grow over specially-made pieces of recycled plastic which help to shape the trees' growth. (Tom Maddick via SWNS)
"It's been 20 years already, but it might take another two decades to work out how to best share this knowledge.
"It's not a quick process to create these chairs as you're at the mercy of Mother Nature.
"We're still working it out even now."
The couple is now also setting up the Full Grown Academy to pass down the skills in the hope more people can carry on the builds.
They are also selling the chairs as artworks which are "priced accordingly" and gallery owner Sarah Myerscough says they can be worth around £75,000 (more than $100,000).
A bronze cast of one of their chairs appeared at this month's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, while several other chairs have been displayed in galleries worldwide.
Gavin said: "We're quite lucky that the prototypes or failures are being seen as art.
"They do cost a lot more than that to manufacture, but we don't know how much it will cost to do in the future.
"Growing your own in your garden is the most accessible way of doing it at the moment.
"Lots of people have been wanting to do this in their own gardens, or in museums and things, so that's our next level.
"They cost too much at the moment to mass produce.
"Out of the few hundred we started with we're going to be lucky to have a dozen chairs over the 20 years of labor.
"We had 200 trees started. We've got six chairs out there in the world that are sittable and there's a handful more still growing and drying in the workshop.
"The aim is to have an orchard like this in every town — but we're some time off of that."
(Tom Maddick via SWNS)
The pair first planted it in 2008 before starting producing the furniture in 2012.
Alice, 51, added: "The first year had been trampled by cattle so it wasn't off to the best start.
"Since we started we've used all sorts of different types of trees.
"Primarily we've shown pieces from willow, but we've tried apple, cherry, oak, ash, beech and hawthorn.
"The first experiment were trees where the chairs were grown the right way up. But we soon changed that.
"We've moved on from the plastic mold, now what we use is a bit more of a metal mold.
"We'll probably end up using stainless steel for the future, to avoid rusty metal."
Gavin came up with the ground-breaking idea while he was in hospital with Klippel-Feil syndrome — a rare congenital condition where the abnormal fusion of two or more neck vertebrae.
He underwent several operations to straighten his spine when he had the idea while viewing the scenery from his hospital bed.
Gavin went on to study art and furniture design, before setting up his own bespoke furniture business in 2006.
(Tom Maddick via SWNS)
Alice added: "This has all been my husband's idea. His parents had some overgrown bonsai and the silhouette looked like a throne.
"Then he spent a lot of time in hospital having his spine straightened as a child. He was lying still for a long time surrounded by amazing, kind and competent nurses.
"He wanted to be a help to the world. He got the time to observe the woodland over many months and observe the creatures.
"Then he was in California collecting drift wood on the beach and he saw some sticks laid out together in what looked like a table.
"He thought how hard would it be to grow into that shape.
"Then he started to grow some chairs in a corner of a friend's farm in 2006 and we rent the orchard from them to this day."
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