Furniture making is a long process that passes through many hands. Someone plants a tree and grows it for years; someone cuts that tree down and chops it into lumber; and someone else uses that lumber to build furniture using conventional carpentry tools. Full Grown builds their furniture another way: by planting trees that grow directly into fully-formed furniture all on their own.
Instead of sawing, hammering, and whatever other activities building furniture entails, the bulk of the work actually happens as the tree grows in size. Basically, they set it up such that the tree grows into a mold, which shapes it into whatever furniture they want it to become.
Full Grown uses specially-designed plastic frames to train the tree shoots and prune them into the desired shape, grafting parts of the growing tree together as necessary. Once the tree has grown into shape, they continue nurturing it, so the barks thicken and mature into substantial, sturdy pieces of wood. Once harvested, each piece is shaped using a plane before being finished. Because of the unique process in their creation, each piece ends up with its own unique appearance, which is highlighted by the kind of finishing it receives.
The outfit is currently tending a small forest of around 400 trees growing into furniture at a field in the UK. A selection of lamps and mirrors made from the batch will be released in Spring 2016, with the chairs slated to go on sale in mid-2017. The pieces are now available for preorder directly from Full Grown’s website.