Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Charlie Whinney - Coral Arbour

While most shedworkers want a garden office that's usable all year round, others are happy to use something less all-weather and with summer here (kind of), Shedworking was delighted to receive details of Charlie Whinney's Coral Arbour. Charlie, founder and co-director of the Laurent Perrier Award-winning company sixixis whose spectacular rolling summerhouse we featured earlier in the year, has established his own design company, Charlie Whinney Associates. He is a leading exponent of the art of steam-bending wood to create beautiful, unusual curved furniture and large-scale wooden sculptures, a mixture of fine art, product design and architecture.

Charlie's work is also eco-friendly since he uses unseasoned wood from local, renewable sources, while steam-bending is a low-energy technique that eliminates the need for epoxy resins, glues and sealants, and produces very little waste. And indeed his designs are based on natural, organic forms such as coral, pollen grains and microscopic life-forms.Using the same gridshell technique applied to the rolling summerhouse, the Coral Arbour has a curling wooden lattice and an inner curve which forms a natural bench - as climbing plants weave through the airy shell the arbour will grow more beautiful each year.

1 comment:

  1. Reminds me of the Aadrlten Pavilion on Bedford Square, they also seem to be building a similar wooden structure on the other side of the square

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