The Business of Solid Wood

Rolf Barfoed is a Canberra based furniture designer and maker who heads up a team of cabinetmakers crafting furniture and bespoke commissions as well as manufacturing commercially for designers and brands. We spoke to Rolf about the business of woodworking and about the things that influence his own design practice.

‘Visually simple and technically complex’ is how you described a piece made for exhibition this year and this seems to describe the style of your other recent work. How do you define visually simple? Why do you pair it with complexity?

Many of my designs use simple geometric shapes such as rectangles and squares with arcs, tapers and extrusion profiles for detail. These are common, simple shapes in furniture. They’re typical and easily produced with standard tools and machinery.

The rules of timber movement guide the design and craftsmanship decisions I make. With that I’m always looking to be original with the way that I work wood. This is the complexity part. Simple woodworking solutions are