Surface Design Awards – Complete

• INTERIOR SURFACE OF THE YEAR - NEW
  This is a new category that recognises wall, floor, ceiling and surface design products, including decorative, creative and inventive surfaces for the interior of buildings including both commercial and residential properties.

It was hard to choose a product from our collection as the main thing we wanted to show off was our inlay / modern version of marquetry. Our inlay work can be injected into or fixed to any surface, may that be a table top, table leg, kitchen worktop, drawer box side, lamp base, slats on a room divider or simply an off cut of plywood, forming the blank canvas for some wall art. So we chose to enter a piece of our wall art. This celebrates what we can do and whats possible. This piece often receives the greatest of compliments and therefore was an easy choice. Just like any wood related maker/business, we design our own furniture and produce bespoke project commissions for clients. Our 'off the shelf' furniture products include a variety of inlay choices, whereas our bespoke clients have the ability to build their own inlay using a chosen colour palette and pattern designs.

How our wall art is created:
As running out of our inlay during a project or product build would be a disaster, we often make more inlay block than we need for a project. Therefore we are often left with a certain amount of inlay block after each project. This is saved, sliced, laid back to back and used to create pieces of wall art, just like this one. Nothing goes to waste!

A birch plywood substrate forms the canvas of the wall art and allows for easy hanging.
This particular inlay block started its life as a plank of Iroko and we have chosen to highlight its cross grain structure. Within the Iroko you can see our use of recycled plastics in blue and yellow. We have also used off cuts of plywood, softwoods and hardwoods within.
The piece is finished in a glossy finish.

As a business we are passionate about and ensure our work is made out of the most sustainably sourced materials possible. When new/virgin material is purchased, we make sure it is from a sustainable source and supplier. We continue to work with suppliers to establish other new, more sustainable, products that could work for us. The virgin Plywood we use as a substrate for most of our products has been purchased and as a business we understand this has to be a virgin material due to the quantity needed and the properties that comes with brand new material. However, we put most, if not all, of our off cuts straight back into production for future use. Our inlay construction process allows us to use most of our plywood off cuts, as well as timber. The plastic used are from recycled sources and, in the future, we hope to finalise a growing partnership with a Cornish company, allowing us to use recycled ocean plastics within our work. The timber products used within the inlay, as well as our products themselves, are either waste/off cuts from other local woodworking companies or has been sourced from local woodland.

In terms of day to day business, our workshop is powered by Solar panels on the roof which have been installed by our landlord. So we'd like to think that the majority of our work has been created using renewable energy.

Our inlay process from building the inlay to finishing it has its issues. It's been years of trial and error and we still face issues. Some problems we face are lowering the tolerances used within the process and therefore not having tiny gaps/voids within the surface. Research into materials and adhesives allow us to understand the behaviors and outcomes of everything we use.
Actually inlaying the composite inlay block into the surface can throw up many other issues too. Routing out channels using jigs or working with hand tools? These are the processes and questions we ask ourselves in order to make sure we are keeping the process fast but still achieving the best finishes possible.

Every block of inlay has been 100% hand made by us. Each block has been built completely differently and, in fact, it would be impossible to make two identical blocks. Over the years we have learnt several techniques that ensure that every time the block is sliced, a completely unique pattern is produced. Therefore every single one is 100% one of a kind.