As part of Green Design Show 2024 , Mark Tuckey presents Under Construction – a circular design exhibition focusing on the life cycle of reclaimed and recycled timber.
The raw timber showcased originates from diverse urban and regional locations across Victoria, meticulously sourced to reflect our commitment to sustainability and environmental consciousness.
Explore how these materials, some estimated up to 600 years old, are repurposed into our range of handcrafted furniture.
Recycled Hardwood
Otway Ranges
TIMBER TO FURNITURE
We refer to this material as Recycled Hardwood rather than naming as specific species, due to its grading at time of logging. Whilst we now see solid timber being processed mainly for stair treads, cladding and engineered flooring, up until the last few decades, timber was milled for large scale construction, prioritised for its structural properties rather than aesthetic. The material you see here will be a mix of Eucalypts, to use the common names – red and yellow Stringybark, Messmate, Blackbutt, Scribbly gum and thee odd piece of Mountain Ash or similar. Mark Tuckey selects by colour and grain, orienting boards to best present a beautiful tale –with character evenly spread, bolt holes timber plugged and sap lines (kino) filled with bio-resin to capture depth and integrity.
THE HISTORY
This is impressive recycled timber source, carrying scars from both nature and man alike, all evidence of former lives. We say ‘lives’ because it's existence reflects many. To fully understand this pack of timber, you must delve into it's past -Of the 350,000 hectares of native vegetation that covered the Otways 150 years ago, less than half of public land remain as native forest. -Of the 160,000 hectares of public native forest that exist today, almost all of the merchantable eucalypt forest has been logged over at least once. -From early Pastoral development in the 1840’s to the the first Sawmill at Apollo Bay opening 1852, it would be another 50 years before there was thought to conserve forest, dedicating reserves in the early 1900’s. Even so, ever increasing logging continued. There now remains only two small patches of Mountain Ash in public forest of the Otway ranges not to have ever been logged. The West Barham River and in Olangolah Creek.
TIMBER ORIGIN
This pack of timber was originally logged in the depression period, some 80 years after the first sawmill was established in the Otways. The timber source is from the Appleton Dock Storage Sheds, completed in the 1950’s. Used as the original roof purlins it comes from the oldest part of the Wharf, and so was most likely logged in the 1930’s, before World War 11. It’s safe to say, this timber was cut from trees around 600 years old.
PERSPECTIVE
To put timelines into perspective, when this wood was a sapling tree, elsewhere it was the late Middle Ages. Warfare raged between powerful kingdoms of Europe and the black plague killed a vast portion of the population Back here in Australia though, European man would not set foot on land for another 300 years. There was no Medieval Australia and not a tree was logged.
Douglas Fir
TIMBER SUPPLY ORIGIN
Situated on 1.6-hectares in Melbourne’s inner-west suburb of Kensington, is home to the 122-year-old redbrick Young Husband Wool Store. In a redevelopment set to be Melbourne’s largest net zero-carbon, adaptive reuse precinct to date, Young Husband Wool Store and adjoining network of industrial early-20th-century buildings, is in the midst of being faithfully restored and adapted for retail and commercial office space – interweaved with public spaces and integrated landscape to support public and private collaboration. Young Husband Wool Store was first commissioned in 1901 and operated as a wool storehouse until 1970. The space then lay dormant for some decades, more recently serving the local artist community and providing costume storage for the Australian Ballet. It is from this place that our Oregon timber is sourced.
THE TREE
The largest coastal Douglas Fir commonly live to be at least 500 years and sometimes exceed 1,000. The oldest known is some 1300 years old.
THE HISTORY
To discover a deeper history we must delve past the building itself and ask ourselves where did the timber from. Oregon or Douglas Fir as it is properly known, is not indigenous to Australia.
‘Throughout the 20th century, Oregon was possibly the most well-known timber in the world. Enormous volumes of construction grade flitches and joinery grade dimensioned timber was exported from North America to all corners of the globe and Australia was no exception. In fact Adelaide was such a good market for Oregon that special boats, six mastered schooners (all made out of Oregon) were built in the early 1900s to ship timber from the West Coast of North America direct to Port Adelaide.’ Ted Riddle 2014
Perhaps the timber is older still. Before demand made importing more viable, some of the first Oregon was brought over as ballasts in Ships, serving two commercial purposes. It‘s quite possible that the Oregon we see here came to Australia in this way, or was it part of the early onslaught of construction grade soft wood brought into the country in the early 1900s.
Recycled Pine
Siberian Fir / Baltic Pine
Mark Tuckey has been producing furniture from recycled pine material for a number of years. This timber – typically known as Siberian Fir or Baltic Pine, is recognised for it’s short growth cycles due to the colder climate in which it grows. Unfortunately these trees, some up to 300 years old, are often illegally logged from finite sources, making removal unethical and unsustainable. We have been informed that this timber originates from Siberia. The Russian logging industry is known for its lack of proper governance and accountability, though the export of the timber remains legal. As the material passes through countries like Estonia, Latvia, and Finland – the origin becomes increasingly unclear. Logs are then sold to Japan and South Korea to be predominately used for packaging, specifically palletising – then distributed globally to carry various goods.
The pallets sourced by Mark Tuckey are primarily used to transport large coils of tin, which are then manufactured into canned goods found in supermarkets. Once shipping and unloading are complete, these pallets are dismantled and supplied to Mark Tuckey to begin a new life as furniture products, thus preventing the timber from ending up in landfill. As part of the illegal logging legislation set by the Australian Government, recycled timbers are exempt. While we cannot influence those cutting down the trees, it is our responsibility in Australia to ensure this worthy timber does not end up in landfill. For over three decades, Mark Tuckey has utilised recycled timber. Transforming a material originally sourced with negative impact into something valuable and long- lasting is important to us.
WHY DO WE LOOK AT A TREE’S GROWTH RINGS?
The science of dendrochronology enables the telling of a tree’s history by examining the characteristics of the trunk’s concentric rings. They tell stories of growth and structure, organophosphate, the land of origin and climate. The tree lays down new growth each year, converting carbon dioxide and water, in the presence of light and chlorophyll, to oxygen and carbohydrates. It lays down a new layer of cellulose and starch just under the bark, and so increases its girth, by ever so much, depending on the generosity of the season. In the same way, a city grows outwards from its origin.
