How to Commission

Whether you're an architect, interior-designer, business or private individual, we are excited to hear what creative projects you have in mind.

We like to begin with a phone call to get a sense of what you are looking to create and how we can work together to realise your ambitions. This will often be followed up by a visit to our workshop for you to get a sense of how we work, or by a site visit from one of our team.

Throughout the creative process, from initial sketches to finalised scale drawings, material selection to aftercare, we will work closely with you to create something beautiful.

Book a phone call with us by clicking here or send your brief to admin@silvan-studio.co.uk and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can be.

Materials

We proudly source British-grown timbers from well-managed forests certified as FSC or PEFC, mostly with the additional Grown-in-Britain (GIB) certification.

Wherever possible we source our timber in large packs or whole 'sawn through-and-through' logs known as boules. This minimises the environmental impact of transporting raw materials, allows us to ensure greater traceability of source material and produces harmony in the character of the finished product by using timber from a single tree.

As well as working with British-grown solid wood, our material palette incorporates a range of complementary surfaces such as natural stone, furniture-grade linoleum and Richlite.

Finishes and Aftercare

We use naturally derived oils and waxes to finish the majority of our work. These offer hard-wearing protection while allowing the wood to breathe.

These finishes are also easily maintained by following the aftercare instruction document which we have compiled to help you care for your furniture long into the future.

Where a lacquered finish is specifically required we always work with water-borne finishes to ensure we minimise our environmental impact.

Life-cycles

Wood is an amazing material not only for its beauty but for its natural ability to sequester carbon. By converting trees from well-managed forests into furniture and interiors we can store CO2 in beautiful, practical forms.

We are committed to developing our use of tools to quantify carbon and life-cycle analysis in our products in the future. For now we work to the following criteria to ensure that our products are offering meaningful opportunities to store carbon:

  • Objects should have a lifespan at least equal to the lifespan of the tree at point of felling.
  • Strive to avoid untimely disposal by following the design principals of refinement, function and simplicity-of-form.
  • Wherever possible larger products which may be awkward to remove are designed to be dismountable to ensure our clients can continue to enjoy them in the future.
  • Minimise waste by using as much of the material as possible, producing products with offcuts too small to use in furniture.