Working with wood – ten examples of solid wood furniture

As a sustainable material, wood lasts a long time, it’s renewable and with amazing natural looks, it has a long-lasting impact too. Here are ten examples of products that use solid wood wisely.

By Wewood and James Wormald

February 2, 2022 | 11:00 pm CUT

The Liberty table from moooi has an intricate frame that encourages diners to drop their food, just to get a closer look

For the love of wood.

Wood is a five-star material. It’s durable, workable, formable, renewable and, above all, beautiful. But it does have its downsides. It’s less suited to mass production, heavier and costlier to transport and requires more time and skill to craft.

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Many furniture makers boast of their solid wood furniture’s environmental credentials, yet forget one of the first two rules of furniture design – function and form.

Many furniture makers boast of their solid wood furniture’s environmental credentials, yet forget one of the first two rules of furniture design – function and form. Solid wood furnishings are often either too simple to be totally functional for users, or fail to make any real impact in the interior space, or often both.

Furniture makers who specialise in handcrafting customisable solid wood pieces, like the Swiss brand Tossa, give master craftspeople and experienced designers the time to create striking, yet subtle sustainable solid wood furniture. Here are ten selected solid wood furnishings, found in the Architonic catalogue.

Artisan's solid wood Tara chair seems to have evolved rather than designed, with its sleek, naturally functional form

Chairs

The Tara chair, from wood-loving Bosnian manufacturer, Artisan, presents a sinuous form that seems carved from a single tree. The chair’s light, slim frame, however, wastes nothing at all, with no superfluous elements. Tara’s solid but curved seat and back wrap themselves slightly around the users’ form to give a comfortable seat that looks so natural it appears to have grown right out of the floor.

A statement piece of dining furniture, the Liberty table is a conversation starter, whatever the meal

Dining table

As intricate and free in their form as any injection-moulded alternatives, the legs and frame of moooi’s Liberty table begin and end at or underneath the extremities of its surface. Providing superior stability to the table, the positioning also allows the frame to stay clear of shuffling legs underneath. Meaning seated diners can move freely, spreading themselves evenly around the table’s perimeter.

Gervasoni's Gray is a series of raised rim furniture pieces including side, coffee and console tables, as well as chairs

Side table

The Gray series of side and coffee tables from Gervasoni features a slightly raised lip around the tabletops’ circumference. The feature, combined with the solid wood’s natural grain, brings a subtle depth to the functional flat surface, while stopping unruly pens from rolling over the drop, and spilt drinks from overflowing onto treasured rugs and pets.

Whichever way it points, the multi-positional and -directional Hexa is a table with character from Wewood

Bedside table

Hexa is a multi-purpose table from Wewood, suitable as an occasional or coffee table. Taking inspiration from the timelessly stylish hexagon, Hexa can turn on its side and slide into small spaces other side tables can’t. Or, alternatively, it can turn over onto its base and perform, either individually or in groups, as a coffee table in light or dark wood, or both together in a geometric pattern.

Prostoria's Oblique furniture collection features angular crafted legs that seem to sit on a pin

Coffee table

Some would say a functional coffee table is one with plenty of under-top storage. Others, however, would claim that space in which to clear common accoutrements away from the tabletop, gives licence for them to be there in the first place. Sometimes the most functional furnishings are those so simple, they encourage only the necessary and nothing more.

The solid wood Oblique table from Prostoria, for example, features a natural surface so perfect, users may refrain from using it at all. The table’s crafted legs, meanwhile, are optical illusions; seeming to sharpen at both ends, they give the impression of a careful balance between top and floor, yet keep the table as stable as ever.

Both Fantoni's stool (top) and Miniforms' Pezzo stool (bottom) seem inspired by the simplicity of the tree trunk

Stool

How much design can be stripped away before minimalist objects fail to prove functional at all? Perhaps this stool by Fantoni was created to answer the question. The solid wood stool becomes more than the sum of its natural material parts by doing very little. In fact, it’s hard to imagine it doing any less, the 45cm log has no other features save a tapered edge.

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How much design can be stripped away before minimalist objects fail to prove functional at all?

By trying to blend in, Fantoni’s stool certainly stands out. But the heavy, circular form may not be the most practical of stools when it requires repositioning. Alternatively, the Pezzo stool, by Miniforms, offers a little more concept to its design by lathing away most of its top half, down to a central core. Pezzo remains stable thanks to a low centre of gravity, but also becomes grabbable by its central column and liftable thanks to the lost weight.

The Riki Bench by Conde House has a slightly concave seat that helps users comfortably slide across it

Bench

I absolutely love dining sets that replace one seating axis with a long bench, rather than a mirrored row of chairs. The interruption in symmetry is a pleasing visual stimulus while – by removing the barriers of space between two seats, thus forcing others to slide up and down – it’s a simple way to bring a community feeling to mealtimes. The Riki Bench from Conde House features a concave seat that aids the sliding, and brings additional comfort to benched diners.

The architectural simplicity of the Taidgh shelves collection, from ClassiCon, enhances the beauty of the objects it presents

Shelving

More than just storage, shelving is not just a place to put things. As opposed to a cupboard or drawer, open shelves are made for objects that want to be seen. They are micro-galleries for the home, presenting carefully-positioned objects of beauty with pride. The Taidgh series, from ClassiCon, for example, is a family of solid oak or walnut modular shelves in four individual designs, or arranged into countless configurations. With a simple construction that seems like crafted scaffolding, the shelves’ natural form is an integral part of their beauty, taking nothing away from the objects they hold.

It's difficult to keep your hands off the Casanova sideboard's doors, with their dazzling pattern of oak and walnut strips

Sideboard

For items that don’t shine with beauty, the best place for them is behind a door that does. The appropriately named Casanova sideboard from Wewood is fronted by simple yet intricate sliding doors with which to fall instantly in love. The doors’ handcrafted carpentry combines tongue and groove joints with both oak and walnut, together in a mesmerising pattern.

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