Based in Kent on the periphery of London, Chamber Furniture is a family run business with a reputation for fine quality materials and high standards of craftmanship. Specialising in bespoke furniture and hand-made kitchens, they planned a new workplace collecting offices, workshops and customer sales together on a sensitive semi-rural site in Halsted near Sevenoaks. Managing Director Scott Nicholson set a clear brief balancing the pragmatic needs of a small factory with the marketing requirements of a showroom, reflecting a hand-crafted environmentally responsible approach to design and fabrication.

 

Tucked into the topography to preserve unobstructed vistas from the countryside beyond, two interlocking volumes house a design studio and sales space facing the road with workshops behind. Customers browsing the top floor showroom observe the design process in the adjoining offices and glimpse skilled craftmanship on the factory floor below. Interconnecting spaces also promote collaboration between designers and fabricators.

 

Embodying the firm’s sustainable crafted ethos, the public facing volume is clad in green oak. Sawn between three and eighteen months after the tree is felled, it seasons naturally without chemical preservative treatment. Initially a rich gold in hue, the timber has matured to a harmonious silver grey. Finer oak finishes permeate through into the interior.

 

In contrast, metallic industrial cladding wraps the rear factory volume, where generous folding doors greet the busy comings and goings of materials. These lead to a robustly detailed workspace with expressed steel frame, fairfaced blockwork walls and polished concrete floor.