Meet the YFM exhibitors – Adam Wolstenholme

The Young Furniture Makers exhibition, our annual showcase of emerging design talent, returns to the City of London on Wednesday 12 October for one day only.

Around 100 designs will be on show with industry being invited to attend and meet up-and-coming designer-makers who are looking to make an impact on the sector. Over the coming weeks we’ll be interviewing some of the makers who will be exhibiting at the event, which is sponsored by Axminister Tools and Sanderson Design Group and supported by the January Furniture Show.

Name: Adam Wolstenholme
Name of pieces: ‘Polybloc’ dining chair

Tell us about the products you’re exhibiting. What’s the story behind it? 

Driven by a frustration of 21st Century throwaway culture, particularly in furniture, I decided to go down the rabbit hole with perhaps one of the most produced, iconic, and cheap chairs in the world – the ‘Monobloc’, otherwise known as the plastic garden chair. My resulting ‘Polybloc’ dining chair takes many of its iconic visual features and reimagines it for high-end interiors, consisting of various pieces of crafted ash grown and crafted locally in the UK. I justified this practice of using the epitome of 21st century throwaway furniture as an ‘archetype’ by studying how Danish designers of the mid-20th century took inspiration from their own historical archetypes of choice (e.g Windsor/Chippendale/Chinese chairs). The resulting designs went on to become some of the most iconic and influential Modernist pieces of furniture ever conceptualised. My own narrative, however, plays with the irony of taking what is so easily disregarded and disposed in this century as its inspiration. 

What was the most challenging part of bringing them to life? 

The design needed many processes to produce by hand, but the biggest challenges were the seat, back, and armrest. Each had to be modelled in CAD, and moulds produced from these. I had to cut the seat and back shapes on 0.9mm plywood, with a craft knife, 8 times each to produce the thickness before laminating and bag pressing. The ambitious single-piece arm rest had to be turned into a straight, rounded profile dowel and steamed for 18 hours in a make-shift chamber made with scrap tubing, loft insulation, and a slightly faulty wallpaper stripper! Even after all that time, the 30mm thick piece still had to squeeze round very tight corners to get the ‘Monobloc’ armrest sweep I envisioned. 

What do you hope to get out of being part of the Young Furniture Makers exhibition? 

I’ve had the pleasure of exhibiting the ‘Polybloc’ on another occasion at New Designers 2022, and I wish to take away the same things from that experience, which are: invaluable knowledge and lessons from those who define the industry today, and exchanges of advice and words of support from those who will go on to define the industry tomorrow. 

Who is your design hero and why?

I have so many, and each for so many reasons. However, my first choice would probably be Kaare Klint – a name truly synonymous with icon. Not only did his design methodology influence the ‘Polybloc’ design process, but without him some of my most loved designs by Nanna Ditzel, Hans Wegner, and Børge Mogensen might not have come to be without his education, guidance, and commitment to balancing supreme ergonomics with clean lines and simple ornamentation. No messing around, just beautiful furniture that remains as timeless and as functional today as it did 100 years ago.

What are your career aspirations?  

I would hope that my whole life will be spent designing well-made, long-lasting, and attractive furniture and accessories that gain heritage and become treasured by generations to come. I want to have as much commitment as possible to being precious of the materials we harvest from the earth, and hopefully influence others to do the same. I also wish to carry on collecting period pieces from the past century and beyond, not just for any financial profit, but protect and introduce them to new homes and new audiences to learn from the past.

Which company would you love to work for one day?

I recently began working as Product Developer at Howe London, a company that really embodies all my design values to a T – localised manufacture, localised materials, and zero-compromise designs that take inspiration from the history of fine craftsmanship. I’m content and guilt-free when designing responsibly and not trying to solve made-up problems for made-up consumers. So with that being said, perhaps the only company left that I’d love to work for in the far far future is (hypothetically) my own! Who knows.

How do you think you’d react if you won a Young Furniture Makers Award?

I think a sense of recognition is always warmly received, and there would be no greater honour at this point in my career to win such an accolade from such a prestigious organisation. I’m still viewing being shortlisted and given the platform to showcase my design an ward in itself, so it’s a hard question to answer!