New Austria-based furniture brand One For Hundred plants 100 trees for every piece of furniture it sells.

Founded by Anna and Karl Philip Prinzhorn, the idea behind One For Hundred was to start a furniture company with a difference.

The brand produces solid wood furniture harvested from its own certified forests, located north of Vienna. “The woodland consists of mixed deciduous and coniferous forests, typical for growing in this region,” states the brand on its website. “We make sure to keep a healthy mix of different kinds of trees and avoid planting mono cultures. This supports the development of a varied biosphere and helps to keep the soil healthy. Our forest is PEFC certified and comprises acknowledged oak populations whose seeds are used by tree nurseries.”

The collection, made up of tables, a sideboard, stool and shelving system, are all fully customisable. Stand-out designs include the Bar X console table that also functions as a bar, with specially made drawers for glasses, as well as the Shadow sideboard, complete with a powder-coated tubular steel leg frame.

Shadow sideboard

Bar X console table

For more information, visit oneforhundred.com.

(h/t) dezeen.com

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I write this under a sturdy beam that holds up the ceiling, sitting in a chair with a timber frame. My feet are planted on a floor that is made from tiles, and yet these, too, have required timber in creating forms for their manufacture.

Meanwhile, the computer that records my keystrokes sits on an oak table and was packaged and marketed via a range of wood-derived paper products. The heat in the room is partly fuelled from an open fire of logs, and aided by the ambient sunshine coming through the glass in a wooden window frame. I could list many thousands of other materials indebted to trees – there’s one in your vision right now, these pages.

Visible products are only the half of it, though. Our dependency becomes more vital and mysterious. Patients in hospital are now thought to get well faster if they have a sightline of trees. Families that live with trees nearby are said to have less fierce arguments, or at least resolve them better. These stories are not based on hard science – their veracity requires more substantive study – but the fact that we have such ideas and theories, true or false, indicates the desire we have to connect with trees. The thinking discussed in the scientific community is increasingly that trees may trigger some kind of deep response in our system. It is not a sentimental or aesthetic enjoyment of arboreal scenes that explains our preference for environments with trees. Instead, the speculation infers that our connection with trees goes right back through evolution to when we came out and down from the trees. Unlike the other primates, we stopped living in the branches and moved to the ground and the edge of the forest, where we began to exploit the trees and our fellow creatures. Now we tend to live in cities, with a life hemmed in by asphalt, steel, glass, plastics and digital communications, but we may still intuitively know that trees are a central part of the universal life cycle.

As we look at the beautiful and the strange forms and behaviours of trees in these pages, we need to remember that it is not so much in the second and third dimensions, but in the fourth dimension – time – that trees are most outstanding as a life force…

They are like family, where you can never untie or deny the connection, only seek more information to satisfy the reasoning mind and more love to soothe the heart.

Extract from The Life & Love Of Trees by Lewis Blackwell, published by Quivertree.

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This spectacular riverside home is an entertainer’s dream. State-of-the-art technology with full surround sound, a classic bar and a wine cellar complement the elegant reception rooms.

The double stand features cascading koi ponds plus a large north-facing deck with views over the river, swimming pool, lapa and Jacuzzi. There is a separate gym with aqua massage, tanning facility, steam room and sauna, and a cottage with kitchen, lounge and dining area – ideal for visiting family or friends.

The home includes a study, four fireplaces, air conditioning, underfloor heating, a cinema and double staff accommodation.

Dainfern Valley is a well-established security estate with tree-lined walkways, parks and beautiful, well-maintained gardens.

PRICE R16.5 Million

Contact Sue Ralph (082 892 8772, sue.ralph@pamgolding.co.za) or Brenda Gilbert (083 251 4452, brenda.gilbert@pamgolding.co.za for more information about this listing).

For more state-of-the-art homes, visit pamgolding.co.za.

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A new documentary about Cape Town artist Beezy Bailey is premiering this week, so we decided to visit him in his Higgovale home, a creative canvas that never shies away from bold colour combinations.

“I remember the first time I came to this house I had to wear a jacket and be on my best behaviour,” says eccentric fine artist Beezy Bailey of his house, Villa Toscana, which originally belonged to an elderly aunt. “When we first moved in, my wife and I were like the paupers in the palace. Some friends rented rooms here and we had some historically wild parties.”

Set high up in Higgovale, looking down over the lights of Cape Town’s City Bowl, the house was built in the 1950s in the style of a grand old Italian villa. High ceilings, large sash windows and stately marble fireplaces make for an imposing first impression. Today, Beezy shares the house with his wife Nicci and two teenage children. The decor could not be more different.

As an artist, Bailey is known for his boldness; whether as a painter, a maker of monumental sculpture, or creating work in his own Art Factory. He’s also made a foray into sound, working in collaboration with British electronic musician Brian Eno to create paintings with soundtracks, expressing what the visuals and colours would sound like.

At home, Beezy is similarly unafraid to make a noise. “People are terrified of colours,” says the artist. “If it doesn’t work, you can just paint over it.” In Villa Toscana, this ethos finds its expression in a dramatic palette of bold, contrasting colours. “We’ve got this incredible choice of colours and people should spend more time matching them together,” adds Beezy.

Deepend Films will premier the Beezy Bailey documentary, Outsider, on Wednesday 14 May in Cape Town at The Labia and on Monday 19 May in Johannesburg at the Killarney Mall cinema. For more details, please visit: deependfilms.co.za/film/outsider

Originally published in Plascon Spaces.

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Joburg’s Woodlady plans to save nearly 50 hectares of trees in 2014 by producing its beautiful retro-inspired handmade products exclusively from recycled wood! We spoke to the two eco-friendly entrepreneurs behind the company, co-founders Letitia Lerm and Laré Birk, about their design philosophy, educating clients and juggling multiple careers.

Recent developments saw the Gauteng suburb of Linden experience a creative boom. How do you find working in an environment filled with other creatives and what impact does sharing a space with Ceramic Factory have on your vision?

It is incredibly exciting to see Linden boom and to be part of it. Sharing an environment with creatives inevitably influences how you see things, do things and even more so, aspire to do things. The most exciting thing about working in Linden must be to witness the way in which young businesses support each other. We have a beautiful relationship with The Whippet, a coffee shop across the road, with whom we have collaborated on a number of projects. Equally so with Ceramic Factory (read our article here) who we share a space with – our product and theirs complement each other beautifully. We have learned to be open to partnerships. By working together businesses can flourish. 

With such a strong emphasis on sustainability, what is the Woodlady design philosophy and how do you ensure that it translates through every produced piece?

Simplicity and functionality. We approach the design process with these two factors in mind. The simplistic-nature of our offerings enables our clients to explore with paint techniques themselves. We have learned a number of things from our clients and we try our best to take inspiration from this. This allows us to build wonderful relationships with them. Having said that, we take great care in identifying and designing products that we ourselves love and would use. We design products unique and identifiable as Woodlady. Brand identification is important to any business. Keep it simple. Keep it original.

With both of you having other occupations – creative director and actress respectively – do you find it difficult to switch between your career and the new business, and how do you stay motivated?

We have achieved a balance. Woodlady has taught us many business, even life, skills that we can implement in our respective careers. As young female entrepreneurs we are learning and developing at lighting speed, because that is what is required to run a successful business. We are close friends and support each other in business, our creative careers as well as personal life. We motivate each other.

Woodlady prides itself in only using recycled wood to produce various products. However, wood can be very vulnerable. Upon purchase, do you educate your clients on how to take care of the products? 

Yes, we do. We notify our clients of the specific eco-friendly treatments we use, and advise them to take care of the product accordingly. We put a lot of love into it. Love is important. 

When designing the furniture, do you design by range or at random? What is the turnover time from concept to completion?

We have both ranges and individual pieces. The magic lies in our approach – we design retro-inspired pieces that are small enough to fit into your tiny Johannesburg apartment but make a statement in your loft in Cape Town too. Because of their simplicity, all our pieces compliment each other. We communicate a lead period of four weeks to clients. Recycling wood takes a lot of work. Because we believe in doing it right, it takes patience and effort. We want to produce products people will appreciate and love as much as we do.

What’s your dream for Woodlady?

We have big dreams for the brand. We are hoping to supply events management companies with our products soon. We believe in the power of process and would love to collaborate with more creatives to produce bespoke, quality products. South Africa is host to the World Design Capital 2014, after all.

Woodlady, Shop 59, Fourth Avenue, Linden, Johannesburg, www.woodlady.co.za

Keep in touch with the ladies by liking Woodlady on Facebook and following them on Twitter.

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Nestling in a cove of milkwoods is a xanadu of a modern home. The owners, a hard-working couple seeking a private refuge, named it “umthunzi”, Zulu for “meeting place under the trees”.

Ralf and Jacqueline Obry had hunted all the way from Paternoster to Witsand for a property on which to build a weekend home. But when they arrived in Noordhoek near the Cape Peninsula’s Atlantic coast, their search abruptly ended – because it took them less than half an hour to decide that this piece of land was exactly what they wanted. “The beauty of this area simply took our breath away,” Jacqueline says of the couple’s first seeing the property.

As owners of an events company in Germany, the Obrys had spent more than 20 years organising conferences involving large crowds of people, so peace and quiet were foremost on their list of priorities. Firm believers in the adage of a change being as good as a holiday, the couple started initiating major life changes when they visited South Africa with clients and fell in love with it.

With tall milkwood trees occupying a large part of the property, Ralf had a rather small area to play with when designing the house with architect Celia Fraser. But play he did – until he came up with a three-storey home that would be wrapped in an arboreal cocoon. Because, in the meantime, through chatting to a Franschhoek landscaper friend, he had found a way to conserve the property’s magical old milkwoods. Says Ralf, “When outside, on the ground-floor deck, you are under the trees; on the first floor, you are in them, as if in a tree house; and from the second floor, you look down onto an ocean of green leaves … you’ve risen above them.”

Allowing nature to call the shots

To make the most of their natural surroundings, Ralf constructed decks on all sides of the house, with glass forming the only buffer between the tamed and the untamed. The structure’s facade is indicative of the design philosophy on which the house is based: juxtaposing the ultramodern with nature’s unrefined elements.

The result? A strikingly successful combination of the natural world’s raw beauty and the contemporary comfort of a modern home.

Allowing nature to call the shots when designing a house can prove an immense challenge, yet be endlessly rewarding. To all sides of this house, vast glass doors open onto various deck spaces that showcase the diverse surrounding landscape. One side has views of the Atlantic and Noordhoek’s famous stretch of white beach, another draws the eye up towards the jagged textures of Chapman’s Peak, and that to the left of the house shows the lush density of the milkwood forest.

Once inside the property’s elaborate wrought-iron gates, the visitor’s attention is drawn towards the massive, solid-steel front door. But this heavy, fortress-like entrance belies the luminous interior space.

The peace and tranquillity that pervade the house’s natural surroundings are echoed inside with the generous use of light ivory- and chalk-coloured walls, floors and ceilings. While contributing to the home’s calming ambience, the light walls also act as a gallery space for the couple’s impressive collection of works by pioneering South African artists.

A breathtaking cohesion

“The talent in South Africa is outstanding and our home forms the perfect background against which to display it,” says Jacqueline. Though each piece tells a very different story and is unique in design – and sometimes in media – the couple’s sense of styling gives the contrasting parts a breathtaking cohesion.

Immigrating to a sometimes-unpredictable country such as South Africa after a lifetime in uber-organised Germany is an adventure not many people would have the courage to undertake. But for Ralf and Jacqueline, it was the first of many wonderful changes. And, when admiring the milkwood trees proudly adding to the area’s beauty, one can’t help but see the resemblance between them and the Obrys: both are firmly routed in South African soil, and flourishing.

Stretched out on their deckchairs to enjoy another great sunset, with an ice-cold bottle of wine at the ready, they appear to have found the antidote to hard work: perfect relaxation.

Architect Celia Fraser 021 789 2371

First published in VISI 30

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