'We mould trees to grow into the shape of chairs'

I first read about tree shaping in a Readers Digest magazine in the 1990s. It featured a man who would shapes trees into chairs and other sculptures. Even since then I wanted to do it. I got started on a white cherry tree that started growing in my yard. Once it got large enough, I would braid and weave the branches every spring.

I didn't do anything as complicated as a chair. I would try to create loops by braiding two distant branches into each other and fastening with wire. Or I would take a long branch, and bend it back to the trunk, and braid it into a branch heading in the opposite direction.

The most difficult thing was not accidentally breaking the branches while braiding. Sometimes strong winds would create too much tension on the already stressed branches and cause them to break.

I did that for about 5 years before I sold that house. The tree is still there last time I checked, but I haven't gotten a close look at how it has progressed.

At my new house, I've tried it with a red maple, but haven't had much success. The branches that I've shaped end up dying.

Sharing this story makes me want to take up the hobby again. I've got some fast growing trees at my current house that I could use.

Edit: here is a photo of my tree (if you can abide imgur) https://imgur.com/a/PjwqWzo

I don't have a picture at hand, but on frequently used rock climbing spots, the young trees at the bottom, where the partner with the rope stands, can be very chairlike, too. I once asked myself why are they so conveniently formed, while leaning against one, but then I got it.

This field is called Tree Shaping[1] and while it has been tried throughout history, I think there's still a lot of cool stuff that has never been tried.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_shaping

Couple of Australians have been doing this since the 90's - I think they coined the term 'pooktre' to describe the form - https://www.pooktre.com/

Searching `Peter Cook Becky Northey tree furniture` gets you some nice pictures of their work, as they don't just 'do chair' -- though I suspect plenty of people have been doing this in various forms for centuries.

Weaving saplings and coppice sprouts and growing them in place is incredibly ancient, maybe neolithic. Julius Caesar was freaked out by the living woven defenses of the Nervi in Gaul. In general the deeper you go into the past the more people were aware of the possibilities of sprouting wood, coppicing, etc.

In Northern California there’s a small amusement park that has several of these. Haven’t been, but it’s on my list. https://www.gilroygardens.org/circus-trees/

I've seen this couple discussed on HN before, although my searching abilities are failing me, I just found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21051965 which is the same couple, but with 3 points and 1 comment, isn't likely to be the discussion I remember.

There's also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9344837 4 points 11 years ago, although the link is dead.

An issue of WET magazine (from the 1980s) profiled a similar operation. Always beautiful to see.

I thought the title was some kind of metaphor. Quite surprised at being a literal thing.

This feels closer to structural design using living organisms rather than architecture.

Talk about patience...

Are they ergonomic?

What species of tree is good for this?

relatively durable

relatively fast growing and amenable to bending and grafting

willow?

anybody ID those trees?

So elves in dwarf fortress.

On the one hand this is pretty cool.

On the other hand ... those chairs look damn incomplete. Even the supposedly "finished" ones ...

I think these are very beautiful.

[dead]

Imagine an alien species comes here and sees all this totally fucked up human centric thinking. They put fish in small fish bowls, for their own enjoyment. They deform trees for their own enjoyment... and the list goes on. Bleh.

Carpentry is dead