Wood Awards 2014

In the Wood Awards 2014 furniture categories, Fowler & Co’s Hat Tree took the Production Made Furniture Award, which was praised by the judges for its adaptation to the rigours of the production process. Ben Fowler received a Design Guild Mark for the design this year.

The Bespoke Furniture Award was won by Makers’ Eye – a collective of leading design-makers working in Britain today – for ‘Oak Furniture for the Dickson Poon Centre’ at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. This project comprises nearly 200 pieces and was supplied to the sort of quality that tends to come from smaller and bespoke makers.

Chair of the Wood Awards furniture judges, Sean Sutcliffe, said, “This has been another fascinating year for the Wood Awards. One particularly interesting aspect has been to look at the understanding developing between bespoke furniture and design for manufacture – to see how exactly designers are growing to understand the simplification of process that is needed for manufacture and how that can be coupled with quality of design, detailing and materials. On the other hand, there is enormous pleasure when one encounters the creativity, aesthetic understanding, craftsmanship and, often, restraint, that goes into the best bespoke pieces.” www.fowlerco.co.uk