House style

Old wood, new ideas

EUROPEAN FUSION

On the face of it, Scandinavian and Italian design should not make the best bedfellows. The former is characterised by functionality and simplicity; the latter by a good dose of glamour. But a new collaboration between the 70-year-old Italian furniture brand Porada and the London-based Swedish designer Staffan Tollgård proves that the combination can work, marrying a cool Nordic aesthetic with a touch of Italian flair.

The collection, named Archipelago, a reference to Sweden’s islands, comprises two-tier ash tables with steel frames, ceramic surfaces and brass feet, plus a saddle-leather-topped bench. ‘I can see the lower shelf of the coffee table housing some of my favourite books, with a ceramic top above, so I don’t have to worry about guests spilling their drinks,’ says Tollgård. ‘The bench is perfect for an entrance hall; as a Swede I’m militant about the no-shoes rule in my house, so I like to offer a bench for people to sit on when they de-shoe. The leather is going to wear over time, and I’m OK with that.’ Prices start from £1,350 for a side table; porada.it

WOODEN WONDERS

Wood is also the focus of young London brand Dovedale Design Studio: to be specific, petrified bog oak, carbon-dated up to 5,000 years old. ‘We like the idea that we’re not cutting down trees to make our products,’ says Charl Heynike, who founded the company with his St Martins college mate Oliver Tebbutt. ‘The tree would most likely have fallen during a flood, and then been preserved for thousands of years, finally to be pushed back up from the ground with tectonic movement. The wood has so much heritage.’

Bog oak is rare – Heynike and Tebbutt source theirs from a specialist logger in Cambridgeshire – and is up to 10 times more expensive than regular oak. It’s also tricky to work with due to its extreme hardness, but Heynike and Tebbutt were drawn to its natural beauty and colour variations – the logs are black at the edges and a lighter brown towards the centre.

The pair have produced a collection that so far includes a humidor, a drinks cabinet and a set of knives, and they also undertake bespoke commissions. dovedaledesignstudio.com

Above right A two-tier coffee table, and leather-topped bench, part of the Archipelago collection from Porada (main image). Right Dovedale Design Studio’s humidor and knife set, made from bog oak