Trained first as a product designer, Angus chose to specialise in handmade wooden furniture, created from his own sustainable Scottish woodland, using steam-bending and other traditional techniques.
We asked Angus, and his partner and business manager Lorna: what is it that gives your work its unique signature? Our furniture starts in a beautiful Perthshire woodland with the felling of a few sustainably managed oak trees. In each piece of furniture a tree lives on beyond its long years. We embrace the knots and stains revealing characterful grain and dark honey coloured wood. The Prism Collection combines this oak with other natural materials: hand-twisted English rush and Italian leather.
Our dedicated team of exceptional makers blend Arts and Crafts cabinetmaking, green-wood steam-bending and contemporary digital cutting techniques to create exquisite elegant furniture with pure curves and a sense of flow.
As a designer Angus is fascinated by structure, obsessed by functionality and strives to create a delightful experience for the user. It is the combination of materiality, craftsmanship and functionality.
How did you make this new work? Steam-bending is a hot, physical, unpredictable process. There is a magical moment when water softens wood so that it is malleable enough to be hand-bent using jigs and formers.
It is more exciting and less precise than than a lot of woodwork. It is like a handshake with wood in that both the maker and the timber bring their experience and each bend is slightly different.
Is there an interiors project you’ve been involved in that you are particularly proud of? Last year I had a wonderful commission to design the interior of a new library in a private house in USA. We created an interior woodland glade within the woodland setting. There was an open central space with soaring arches and it became a bright warm magical place. The commission included standing and sit desks, chairs, shelving, balconies, secret doors and library ladders.
It was great to be brought in early in the project and to influence the whole room – as often furniture is commissioned and placed at the very end.
Works shown: Prism collection: shelves, chair, stool, side table. Photos by maker and Yeshen Venema, the latter styled by Jessica Jung.