GOING THE EXTRA MILE AGAIN : WONDERWALL STUDIOS

You can’t just cut down olive trees. If it yields, it stands. Cultivation has always been a necessity to keep the orchards healthy. So olive farmers do prune their trees… and cut down those that have simply stopped giving fruit. This pruning stimulates growth and increases the fruit yield.

Olive trees are almost always private property. The owners – the olive farmers – prune and tend to their trees in their own specific manner. Height, girth and grain vary depending on which plot of land the tree grows. This makes almost every tree unique and suitable for high-end furniture and small specialty items.

But like any other industry it produces overstock; rejects. The stuff with nuts, cracks and nature’s small imperfections that can’t be used for high-end furniture or specialty items. The stuff Wonderwall Studios loves to work with. So they use the rejected pruned branches for its collections. Occasionally they’ll source a complete tree, but mostly they rely on the smaller pruned branches. The permissions needed to fell a tree or to buy pruned branches are time-consuming, but absolutely necessary as the tree is an important economic resource. Wonderwall Studios respects this process and always regards receiving a new batch of olive tree wood to be a special moment.

Wood from the olive tree is excellent wood. It is a hard wood and has a splendid grain. The core of the trunk is a creamy-brown colour, with dark or black streaks. The colour deepens with age. The grain can be wavy, burl or wild. The texture is fine and uniform with a natural lustre.

By teaming up with a local professional woodworking family the result is phenomenal; a contemporary collection, recognisable by its craftsmanship and original by design. The first design ‘Waves’ is made from the creamy-coloured core of the trunk and branches of olive trees. Geometric design yet still playful enough not to be too stern. It has a sophisticated colour palette of pink hues and beautiful liquid grains. Waves is a ‘lady of a certain age’ with old-world aristocratic class who has had a little too much to drink.

Wonderwall Studios was the first company to offer high-quality and sustainable wooden surface cladding and wall panelling. The woods they use are exclusively salvaged from abandoned houses, derelict sheds, rail railway sleepers, naturally fallen trees and old floors. For the Olive Wood they immerse theirselves in the Magical Olive Tree Forest. Anything goes really, as long as it’s reclaimed. These woodlovers use exclusively salvaged wood and employ local professional craftsmen. Crafted locally, rocked globally.