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Above left: Stacking pews were made for St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden Above right: Furniture in Architecture is available now Below: More than 1,000 chairs were made for the Guildhall
commissioning the new library, dining hall or lecture theatre. “People have laptops but they still like to work in libraries,” he said, adding that cable management continued to be a major issue. “With WiFi they don’t need to be hard-wired in the same way but they still need power.” Recent commissions have included an order for more than 1,000 chairs for London’s Guildhall, while other major projects have included a library for Selwyn College, Cambridge, an auditorium for Eton College and the reordering of Chester Cathedral. “We’ve also just done a cracking job at
St Paul’s, the Inigo Jones church at Covent Garden,” said Mr Hughes. “We installed 100 stacking pews, working with Historic England on getting the colour and finish right. It looks absolutely stunning.”
When it comes to timber species, oak is way out in front. “Around 65% of what we do is in timber and, of that, about 80% is oak – and European oak by preference. We use some American hardwoods, such as walnut and cherry, but not a great deal.”
Beech has traditionally figured strongly in the furniture sector – but not for Luke Hughes’s furniture, which usually has to cope with some pretty heavy traffic. “We don’t use much beech, largely because it doesn’t take its knocks very well. You take oak and beat it up and it looks better, like a baggy corduroy jacket, you get comfortable in it. “Other, more delicate woods look bruised and battered if you are dealing with heavy churn in a building.”
As for finishes, “architects love matt finishes and we do, too”, said Mr Hughes. “The level of sheen is a very delicate
matter,” he continued. “It can actually look very vulgar if you make it too shiny. Most of our furniture is designed with a 50-100 year life expectancy and things lose their sheen quite quickly, so it’s much better to allow it to acquire its own patina.”
While much of the company’s work is
bespoke, it does include product ranges in its portfolio and a recent addition, the LH42 chair (which also comes in a barstool iteration) is “doing incredibly well”. “We only designed it about 18 months ago – originally for Trinity Church in Wall Street, New York – but we’ve since used it in four Oxbridge colleges and we’ve just won an order for another 400 of them for a dining hall.” The European oak stacking café and meeting chair is designed to be refurbished and can be supplied with a coloured lacquer, upholstered leather or veneered plywood seat. ■
FURTHER INFORMATION
An introduction to the studio and 25 case studies, plus thoughts on the
principles of sustainable sourcing feature in a new book “Furniture in Architecture,
the work of Luke Hughes”, by Aidan Walker and published by Thames & Hudson
https://info.lukehughes.co.uk/ books-furniture-in-architecture
www.ttjonline.com | September/October 2021 | TTJ
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