Christopher Cattle

Christopher Cattle is a British furniture designer who has developed a process of growing furniture by shaping living trees. Cattle calls his work GrownUp Furniture

Cattle wanted to grow stools rather than create them from existing cut wood because with grown furniture, very little energy is required to convert a living tree into the finished piece of furniture, and very little pollution is created in the process. Cattle comments: "Growing furniture isn't going to save the planet, but it can show that it's possible to create genuinely useful things without adding to the pollution that industry inevitably seems to produce. Trees are self-generating, and the only energy needed is that which the sun provides worldwide. It's free and it's non-polluting. My aim though is to encourage as many people as possible to try it for themselves."

In 2007, as part of the exhibition 'Going Green' held by the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), Cattle gave a talk about his grown furniture, and explained how to train saplings on his plywood jigs. In 2008, MERL invited Cattle to demonstrate his art by installing six growing stools into MERL's garden. The MERL's Environmental Learning Officer Kathryn Robinson, as well as Thames Valley University students (a group with learning difficulties) and their teacher, helped Christopher Cattle to plant and maintain the growing furniture. The expected time frame of growing was 5 years, at which point the trees would be harvested to create the finished furniture.

Cattle's finished stools have also been included in international exhibitions:

2005 World Expo 2005 Japan The theme of the Expo was "Nature's Wisdom" 2008 'Matieres a Cultiver' at the Avenue Daumesnil showrooms of VIA. 2008 Museum of English Rural Life

Tree types Christopher Cattle has successfully grown his stool/table design using the following kinds of trees: Ash Sycamore Maple Alder Cherry Beech