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Elegantly Crafted — A Woodwrights and Seear-Budd Ross Collection
Sculptural simplicity allows the warmth and elegance of timber to shine in this furniture design collaboration between long-established New Zealand maker Woodwrights and cutting-edge design duo Seear-Budd Ross.
No material wears the mark of its maker quite like timber. This living element, beautiful even in its raw form, evolves under the hand of a skilled artisan, showcasing the craftsman’s capabilities in every perfectly fitted joint and lustrously smooth curve. With more than 25 years of experience creating quality furniture, New Zealand company Woodwrights knows a thing or two about the beauty and potential of timber. Each piece of Woodwrights furniture is designed with integrity and passionately crafted by the company’s team of artisans.
Today, the company combines traditional craftsmanship with modern manufacturing techniques to create deceptively simple designs that best exhibit the beauty of this natural material. This restrained and respectful style is matched by the minimalist aesthetic of New Zealand studio Seear-Budd Ross, recent collaborators on a capsule furniture collection.
Led by Thomas Seear-Budd and James Ross, the architecture and interiors studio has worked across a wide range of projects, from residential design to retail offerings, interiors and bespoke furniture, earning a reputation for liveable minimalism. The designers’ work balances functionality with elegance to create flourish-free designs that rise above trends. This emphasis on timeless appeal is a trait in common with Woodwrights, driving the collaboration between the two. A key consideration with the collection was to ensure it would have an element of timelessness and enduring appeal, allowing it to integrate into a range of environments and interior styles. Working with a New Zealand design studio also offered an opportunity for both parties to explore new methods of craftsmanship. Designing and developing the pieces locally was a point of difference, allowing more collaboration and each detail to be well considered and resolved.
The SBR C01 dining chair clearly demonstrates how minimalist design can draw attention without embellishment. Its design is about balance – both aesthetically, as it marries functionality with pleasing proportions, and literally, with its exquisitely balanced tripod design. There was consideration to the elegance, proportions and functionality of three legs, particularly in respect to how the chair integrates with the table, but also how the chair looks when someone is seated in it. As well as melding beautifully with a table, the three-legged design also sits well in a corner. Subtle detailing delivers a refined aesthetic and a sense of lightness, with gracefully tapered legs and a sculpted and scalloped backrest. Available with timber or upholstered seats, the chair can be further customised with a range of timber finishes.
It is complemented by the SBR T01 table with a design that radiates stability and promises longevity. There’s a permanence to the table through its heftiness. The visual weight of the solid timber slabs is lightened through negative detailing, which appears as a groove dividing the top and the leg frames. The repetition of this detailing, from the top to the legs, helps to balance out the table’s weightiness. The solidity and subtle detailing of the design shifts the focus to the natural character and ageless beauty of the timber itself.
A good dining table is a lifetime investment, ideally designed as an heirloom piece to carry memories of family dinners and celebrations, and to be worthy of passing down to future generations. The SBR T01 table by Seear-Budd Ross and Woodwrights encapsulates that perfectly and, in conjunction with the SBR C01 dining chair, creates an unforgettable and immaculately crafted dining experience.
