DESIGN PROFILE: sebastian cox

When it comes to making a big noise about the beauty of British timber, Sebastian Cox is a man on a mission. The furniture maker and designer is one of the design world’s youngest but most powerful advocates for the use of local wood. After a sell-out show at Tent London in 2010, while he was still at Lincoln University finishing his MA in Design and Sustainability, he set up on his own in 2011 with the aim to create pieces which marry traditional craftsmanship with locally grown wood and the clean, sleek lines of contemporary living.

- Fiona McCarthy

Many of his pieces are made with woods such as ash, hazel and hornbeam from his family’s five-acre woodland in Kent; others used have been sourced via timber specialists in the UK and even local tree surgeons. ‘We work with around 12 to 15 different species of wood,’ explains Sebastian, walking around his large workshop in north Greenwich with Willow, his snow-white Parson Russell Terrier, trotting at his heels.

He points to some grey-toned timber – ‘once a pear tree at a primary school in Hackney’ – and some richly hued planks of cedar – ‘from a tree planted by Capability Brown in Kew Gardens,’ he adds. All richly textured and interestingly grained, ‘one of my aims is to change people’s value of British wood,’ Sebastian says. ‘The wood doesn’t need to be perfect – so what if it’s not entirely straight or if there’s a bit of a knot in the middle?’