Universally Beautiful

An appreciation of local timber.

Image, Alex Baxter.
Words, Colin Baillie.

Universally Beautiful

As a studio, we value craft, tactile materials, and the process of making things. On a wintery day at the end of last year, we visited our friends at Logie Timber - a sawmill in Speyside, championing sustainably sourced, Scottish-grown timber.

The yard is stacked with Douglas Fir and Larch logs, from managed forests in the surrounding estate, and from elsewhere in the Highlands. We watch a huge trunk getting squared off and cut down into boards. In the workshop (built with whole tree trunks!) there are impressive slabs of hardwood – oak and ash, alongside some elm and sycamore. They’re amazing objects up close, and I hope they will be made into beautiful functional things, that might be valued for another hundred years. I agree with Frank Lloyd Wright that ‘wood is universally beautiful to man’, and I almost decide on the spot to retrain as a furniture maker.

There’s a richness in functional objects that are legibly made by hand – furniture, ceramics or even tools. To my mind it’s what makes so many historic buildings endearing, and conversely what can make many contemporary buildings feel flat, and a little cold. Our stack of timber is Douglas Fir, and it will soon be cut to size, and assembled into an exposed roof structure, lending a tactile warmth to our little contemporary ‘cottage’ in Plockton.