OL Patch Chairs

Furniture making at The Exchange (Erith) is a unique situation. We make beautifully crafted furniture by great designers; but, with the local community on the tools, making the pieces destined either for use within the building, or for sale to support the project.

We focus on production furniture rather than bespoke one-offs. This gives the community makers the opportunity to gain understanding through repetition, and gives the organisation better resilience to absorb mistakes when they happen. One botched chair leg matters less when you’re making several dozen chairs.

I’m not too much interested in the idea of perfection; at least, as the notion of perfection is imaginatively projected into the qualities of uniformity and stability within much of the built environment. Certainly, the aesthetic of much bespoke craft is more intent on denying timber’s inherent variations, rather than committing to true material understanding. So, when mistakes are made with components, I want to both own the community makers’ learning experience — to show our workings — and honour the material. In doing so, our production workshop leans a little in the direction of bespoke work, and some unique pieces emerge. This approach consciously borrows something from the visible mending movement within textiles.

The OL Patch Chair shown here is a variation of the Mentsen designed OL Chair, that won a Wood Award in 2023.