Soaped oak
Stays pale, dries to a chalky touch, lightens slightly at the arris where hands rest. Washed twice a year with soap flakes and water.
Material library
Six families · Sourced in Europe
Materials
We work with six material families and know each of them intimately.
Restricting the palette is what allows us to develop it. Every timber is bought by the board, every stone by the block, every finish mixed in the workshop. What follows is how each material behaves, why we use it, and how it will change in your room over the next twenty years.
01 / Timber
Oak
The quietest structural timber we know.
We use European white oak from managed forests in Jutland and Thuringia, bought as full logs where possible and air-dried for at least two years before it reaches the bench. Quarter-sawn boards give us the straight, calm grain we want for frames; the flat-sawn material goes into tops where a little figure is welcome.
Oak is hard, dimensionally reliable and forgiving of repair. Soaped, it stays close to the pale straw colour of the freshly planed board and can be brought back with a cloth. Left bare on inner faces, it slowly warms to honey — a change we design for rather than resist.
SourceJutland, DK · Thuringia, DE
CutQuarter-sawn & flat-sawn
FinishSoap, white oil or lye
Used inHalden, Kettil, commissions
02 / Timber
Walnut
Dark, dense and capable of holding a very large surface.
European walnut is slower grown and more variable than its American cousin, with a cooler, greyer brown and a restless figure near the heart. We buy it in matched sets from a single log so that a table top reads as one piece of material rather than an assembly of boards.
Oiled, it deepens rather than yellows, and it takes a hand-sanded arris beautifully — the softened edge that makes a heavy top feel approachable. Because good walnut is scarce, we cut it last and keep every offcut for repairs and future commissions.
SourceNorthern Italy · France
SelectionSingle-log matched sets
FinishHard wax oil, hand burnished
Used inMeridian table, Kettil shelves
03 / Mineral
Stone
Mass, coolness and a record of geological time.
Roman travertine, Portuguese limestone and occasionally a grey Bardiglio marble. We choose stones with open, legible structure rather than dramatic veining, and we cut across the bed so the pores draw a calm horizontal line around a body instead of a pattern across a face.
Surfaces are honed or sandblasted, never polished. A honed stone absorbs light, feels dry to the hand and ages without showing every mark. Blocks are photographed and numbered before cutting, and offcuts return to the workshop as bases and counterweights.
SourceVicenza, IT · Alcanede, PT
CutAcross the bed, solid sections
FinishHoned or lightly sandblasted
Used inVein side table, commissions
04 / Metal
Brushed metal
Thin, precise and quietly reflective.
Steel gives us the sections timber cannot: a 12 mm flat bar carrying a shelf, a drawn column holding a light two metres above the floor. Sheet is folded rather than welded wherever possible, so an edge stays continuous and the material's thinness remains visible.
We finish steel three ways — brushed with a fine directional grain, chemically blackened, or patinated when we use brass. None of them is lacquered. Blackened steel greys where hands rest on it; brass darkens to a warm bronze and can be brought back with a cloth if you prefer it bright.
WorkshopSkanderborg, DK
MethodFolded sheet, drawn tube
FinishBrushed, blackened, patinated brass
Used inColumn light, Aperture, Kettil
05 / Glass
Glass
Material chosen for what it does to light, not for transparency.
Our diffusers are hand-blown opal glass from a small furnace in Murano — two layers, white over clear, so the light source disappears entirely and the surface glows evenly from edge to edge. Machine-made glass cannot do this; it always shows a hot spot.
Elsewhere we use reeded and lightly acid-etched glass for shelves and sliding fronts, where the material can hold a soft vertical rhythm without becoming a mirror. Each blown component varies by a millimetre or two, and the metalwork is drawn to accommodate that.
WorkshopMurano, IT
TypeHand-blown opal, reeded, etched
ToleranceMetalwork drawn to suit variation
Used inColumn light, Aperture wall light
06 / Surface
Natural finishes
Finishes that can be renewed with a cloth, not stripped with a machine.
We use soap, plant oils, hard wax and mineral pigment — nothing that forms a plastic film. A film finish looks perfect for two years and then fails visibly; an open finish looks lived-in from the first month and can be maintained indefinitely by anyone.
Every piece leaves the workshop with a care card and a small tin of the exact finish used. Soaped oak is washed twice a year; oiled walnut is refreshed once. Metal and stone need nothing but a dry cloth and time.
TimberSoap, white oil, hard wax oil
PigmentMineral, mixed in the workshop
MetalUnlacquered, chemically patinated
MaintenanceCare card and finish tin supplied
How materials age
Twenty
years on
What to expect from each family over time, written plainly, because it is part of the design.
Oiled walnut
Deepens in the first eighteen months, then holds. Water marks lift with a light re-oil; the surface never needs sanding back.
Honed stone
Develops a soft sheen where used. Oil and wine can leave a shadow — we consider that patina, and it can be drawn out with a poultice.
Blackened steel & brass
Greys and warms where touched. Brass moves from gold to bronze within a year. Both can be left alone or polished, as you prefer.
Sample library
Order a set of physical samples.
Photographs are unreliable for material. We send a flat box of six samples — soaped and oiled oak, oiled walnut, honed travertine, brushed and blackened steel, and a piece of opal glass — free of charge to clients, architects and galleries anywhere in Europe.
Soaped oak
Oiled walnut
Travertine
Brushed steel
Opal glass
Blackened steel
