Suent Superlight Chair

Project Info

Furniture designer Sebastian Cox created all of the products in his latest collection from local coppiced hazel that he harvests by hand. When the hazel ‘rods’ are cut, they re-sprout with vigour providing a new crop for harvesting again seven years later. Cox sources his timber from a nearby Forestry Commission wood that is coppiced and normally burned.

Cox says coppiced hazel is an excellent timber for lightweight pieces of furniture. He has combined furniture making skills with traditional methods used to manipulate green wood. The flagship piece of this collection, The Suent Superlight Chair, weighs only 1.7kg but is strong enough to seat a 120kg person.

Apart from being made from an entirely renewable material, this chair, which comes in a range of colours, is designed to be visually lightweight and unobtrusive resulting in a piece of furniture that has aesthetic longevity.

The judges said the chair had an ‘Italian feel’, was ‘remarkably comfortable’ and ‘very eco friendly’.