In 1987 Peter Cook had the idea, “I wonder if I can grow a chair?”
The tree chair pictured took 8 years to grow.
In 1995 Becky Northey become Peter’s partner. They spent many cold nights sitting by the fire talking about the possibility’s of trees.
Instead of cutting trees down to make structures, Peter and Becky believe living trees can be shaped and incorporated into the city, bringing life, fresh air and beauty for hundreds of years with very low maintenance. Pooktre was born in Spring of 1996.
Within the first year of their partnership the first three designs started to take shape. More designs and experiments are planted each spring.
"We have studied trees over a combined 41 years. Our process of shaping trees is called pooktre. We have perfected a gradual shaping method, which is the shaping of trees as they grow along predetermined designs."
"Teaching others how easy it is to incorporate trees into our living environment is how we have chosen to contribute to the health of our planet," Becky said.
"We guide out tree’s growth onto predetermined design pathways. This is a very gentle but time-consuming way of shaping. We evolved our techniques of shaping trees in complete isolation from the rest of the world."
"Most of the work with the trees, is done before we even touch the tree. The designing and setting up is crucial and fundamental to the success of the project. The growing is the magic of time bringing the project to fruition."
Peter and Becky were invited to be the featured artists at the Growing Village Pavilion for the 2005 World Expo in Japan. Where they were acknowledge as being world leaders in this art form.
Today's OGN Sunday Magazine articles:
Did you know? A dozen fun and surprising facts about countries around the globe to help put you in pole position at your next quiz night.
Bubble Barrier: The power of tiny bubbles is successfully being harnessed to remove plastic pollution from Europe’s rivers.
What did you get up to during lockdown? Whatever you accomplished, it probably didn’t involve designing and building a fabulous looking all-new British electric sports car in under 12 months.
Cosmic Dawn: NASA has announced that on 18 December, after years of delays, the James Webb Space Telescope will finally leave Earth on a mission to revolutionize astrophysics and cosmology.