Intersecting the boundaries between Nature and Art, Science and Horticulture, Manufacture and Design, Alice & Gavin Munro join hands with our ancestors across the millennia.
They employ ancient techniques & the miracle of photosynthesis by reconceiving harmful manufacture into bio-facture, integrating the artistic and romantic into the scientific, reconsidering the way we produce our everyday objects.
These carbon sink grown sculptures are functional, beautiful objets d’art.
“Each chair is a piece of art.”
Benoit-Louis Vuitton – Head of Art, Culture and Patrimony of Louis Vuitton
The Gatti Chair Started growth in 2012. Harvested in 2018. It’s our first fully functioning grown chair!
“We are very, very happy with your jewel!!!”
Briggitte Maurer -Zürich, Switzerland
“I LOVE my chair!!”
Marnie Holoubek, USA
“This is awesome, thanks so much!!’
Alex Manning, UK
Breathtaking, absolutely beautiful and an amazing piece of design, art, and innovation! People have to see it to believe… and now they can!”
David Tooby, UK
“Your project is just great! And your communication very good… I have selected the projects for my book regarding 2 dimensions: quality of sustainability AND quality of design. For both of these reasons, Full Grown had to be included.”
Geneviève Gallot – Author of ‘75 Designers for a sustainable world’
Alice & Gavin reconsider the Agricultural Revolution and bypass the previous profligate commercial use of trees as a timber commodity (together with the attendant machinery & processing), and create each piece with a ‘carbon sink 3d printer’, a magnificent tree.
Each tree creates the material & forms the shape using the miracle of photosynthesis, with each species demonstrating its idiosyncrasies of growth, displaying for all some of the assumptions & lessons learned throughout intricate & convoluted process.
This represents a paradigm shift in the previous egregious plundering of our world’s natural resources, transforming our relationship with nature, creating our everyday objects by employing the most subtle intervention with Nature.
Alice and Gavin Munro at Secretcape, Mayfair, London
Full Grown is headed by Alice and Gavin Munro. Inspired by the beauty of nature, geometry and the desire to work with wood, they have spent the last 15 years studying and developing the techniques and craft of Tree Shaping and Botanical Craftsmanship.
“Full Grown is creating unique and individual heirlooms and systematically sowing the seeds for future generations to enjoy.”
– Sally Mosley, Derbyshire Life
Our limited edition pieces have travelled the globe and been displayed in galleries and museums alongside the greats such as Tom Dixon, David Nash, Thomas Heatherwick and John Makepeace.
Additionally, our chairs are on permanent display in the National Museum of Scotland, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and the Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collection.
They have graced the pages of national and global publications from the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times, to CNN , CBS and BBC1’s The One Show and Countryfile.
Animation by Melanie Wigger
“…a new mode of mass production, a forest that grows chairs, it could provide durable, beautiful objects to serve basic human needs.” – Sarah Laskow, Atlas Obscura
Furniture has been a part of civilised life for thousands of years, as is the way we make it.
Whilst often effective in some ways, this process is highly wasteful, considerably damaging to our environment, and, when the complete process is taken into account, very slow – it takes at least 50 years before you have a tree that is worth cutting down.
We decided that in a time of change, when our future objects may be printed, by growing the trees directly into shape we can make objects that are more personal, elegant and durable.
This Botanical Illustration of our Nelson Armchair is one of a series of three limited editions, illustrated by artist Geoff Diego Litherland.
Plant trees and water well.
Train and graft chosen shoots around the frame.
Once the chair has formed, leave to thicken for a few years.
HARVEST! Season well, plane and polish to your chosen finish.
“I have never sat in a chair that feels so alive! Full Grown demonstrates that the future will be about bio-facturing, not manufacturing, it will be about patience more than production.”
Lisa White – Head Curator, Design Biennale, Saint Etienne, France 2019 & Creative Director at WGSN.
“Sometimes you see a collection which makes you feel like there is hope for the world. Full Grown has that collection. Made with so much love and knowledge about nature. An asset to the world.”
Nicole Uniquole – Curator Dutch Pavilion – Salone del Mobile, Milano 2018
“I would like to present your Grown Chair in my gallery… …big pleasure!. Super love Rossana”
Rossana Orlandi – Gallerist – London Design Fair 2019