For years, Munro had one crazy idea. He wanted to guide trees to grow into chairs,tables and lamps that could be "harvested" right out of a field. The trees, selected for their ability to grow new sprouts from their stumps, would regenerate. His forest would yield furniture the way an orchard yields apples.
He embarked on his crazy idea by forming a company, Full Grown, and today, there are over 2,000 ash,oak,sycamore and hazel in his farm with each individual tree being formed into a piece of furniture. The chairs grow upside down,their legs stretching up. The first crop of chairs should have been harvested in 2016 but most of them are in the field.
All along, Munro knew it would be possible to coax trees into becoming a chair after all, somebody else had. In his office, he keeps a picture of the "Chair That Grew". It was started from seed and was harvested in 1914 by John Krubsack, a farmer from Wisconsin.
Munro's idea of creating a woodland that regularly produces furniture is catching on. More people now believe that techniques like this can be used to serve more practical purposes. A group of German architects, engineers and scientists are developing principles of experimental architecture in which trees are grown into shelters. Also known as Baubotaniks, it is a method in which architectural structures are created through the interaction of technical joints and plant growth.
Meanwhile, Munro has been taking pre-orders for chairs,tables and lamps but he eventually wants to be able to sell off-the-shelf finished pieces. The timeline goes out to 2031. He wants to be sitting around a giant dining table that he grew.
In a room, he has a small collection of furniture that has been harvested from the field. Lamps hang from the ceiling and leggy tables crowd in a corner. There is a single prototype chair harvested recently. The chair is strong and supportive. Before harvesting anymore chairs, Munro wants to make sure their branches grow even thicker and stronger.
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