For many people a bench is a bench. If you think that, you haven’t encountered a bench designed by Suffolk furniture maker Tim Germain. Andrew Clarke meets the carpenter who is turning the humble bench into a real conversation piece

While many of us worry about our food miles, Suffolk furniture maker Tim Germain frets about his timber miles. As he explains, the vast majority of wood used for construction – including good, solid, so-called English oak – comes from Eastern Europe. So, he's hugely proud that the wood for his bench in Holywells Park in Ipswich has travelled a total of 200 yards from where it was grown to its current site.

For Tim, founder of The Bench Project, benches are not only an important part of his craft but they are also essential pieces of community furniture, allowing people to come together and talk. Each bench that Tim designs is different. It's made from locally sourced materials and designed to reflect the location and the community it serves.

“Benches are all about communication,” Tim explains, as he takes delivery of some more Suffolk grown oak at his Stratford St Mary workshop. “Benches are about a community coming together, people talking and forming bonds.” This philosophy is at the heart of his work and the reason he founded The Bench Project just over two years ago, while working alongside Suffolk Mind on a project at Quay Place, a redundant church on Ipswich Waterfront.

Great British Life: Each bench Tim Germain designs is different, made from locally sourced materials and designed to reflect the location and the community it serves.Each bench Tim Germain designs is different, made from locally sourced materials and designed to reflect the location and the community it serves. (Image: Charlotte Bond)

Great British Life: Benches designed to encourage communication, here at Ormiston Academy in Ipswich.Benches designed to encourage communication, here at Ormiston Academy in Ipswich. (Image: Archant)

Tim says that working with Suffolk Mind crystalised thoughts he was already starting to have about the impractical shape of the humble bench. “Talking with Suffolk Mind and what they wanted from a bench and their views on the function of a bench, changed my whole outlook to their design. For the first time, I started to question the traditional oblong, rectangular shape of the bench.

Great British Life: Tim Germain furniture maker has eight, what he calls, ‘wellbeing’ benches in and around Ipswich.Tim Germain furniture maker has eight, what he calls, ‘wellbeing’ benches in and around Ipswich. (Image: Archant)

“How can you talk when you are sitting side by side and you can’t see the person next to you very well? Who wants to twist their body round so you can see who you are talking to? It was then that I started to look at designing benches which would encourage people to engage with one another and make it easier to strike up a conversation and make benches a much more social space.”

Tim currently has eight, what he calls, ‘wellbeing’ benches in and around Ipswich, as well as others in private and semi-private places, including locations like The Munning’s Museum in Dedham and local schools. The bench at The Munning’s Museum is modelled on the shape and course of the River Stour that runs through the village. “Each design is unique. It says something about the place where it sits.”

If he can, Tim likes to use wood from storm-felled trees or from trees destined to be felled as part of a forest management scheme. “It’s very hard to find a buyer for wood like this, so if they don’t sell it to me, then they're going to have to pay for someone to dispose of it. If they sell it to me everyone wins. They get some money, I get sustainable material for my work and the wood stays in the locality to live on as a treasured place where people can have a quiet moment with friends and family.”

Tim is amazed that no one appears to have thought of interactive benches until now. “It’s so simple and I did wonder why no-one had come up with anything like it before. It just makes perfect sense. The only thing I can think of is because most benches are made in factories, and standard oblong shapes are far easier and cheaper to manufacture and then to ship, so that's why they are still that same boring rectangular shape.

Great British Life: Tim Germain and students try out the bench at Ormiston Endeavour Academy, Ipswich.Tim Germain and students try out the bench at Ormiston Endeavour Academy, Ipswich. (Image: Charlotte Bond)

“Whereas I can shape and bend my handmade creations any which way I want. I can also make them so they are easily repairable – just slip out a broken plank or strut and I can make a replacement. Most commercially made benches can’t easily be repaired. Even if they're a modular design you have to throw away an entire section just to replace one or two struts.”

Talking to Tim, you quickly get a sense of his love for design and the tactile nature of his relationship with wood. He loves that every piece is made and designed for a specific location or person. No two objects – be they pieces of furniture for the home or public benches – are the same. Being able to switch between private furniture commissions for tables, dressers and wardrobes and then turn his attention to big bench projects for public spaces has stopped him getting jaded.

“If you're stuck doing the same thing day in and day out, it’s very easy to become stale. You just turn out the same old thing because it’s easy and perhaps you have fallen slightly out of love with what you are doing. Being a craftsperson can be a very lonely, isolating job working by yourself and if you're not getting stimulation from co-workers, or interesting jobs, then it's easy to become disheartened. Fortunately, because I've built up a business that offers a lot of variety, I have managed to avoid that.”

Great British Life: Furniture maker Tim Germain with his bench at Holywells Park in Ipswich, inspired by the Gainsborough painting of the ponds in the park.Furniture maker Tim Germain with his bench at Holywells Park in Ipswich, inspired by the Gainsborough painting of the ponds in the park. (Image: Archant 2022)

He regards every commission as a collaboration between himself, as the experienced craftsman, and the buyer. “When customers get in touch with me, the first thing I do is try to get to know them a little bit, hopefully see their house, office or garden to get a better idea of their tastes and see where the piece will go. I will also talk about what they like and don’t like, what’s important to them, what they want the piece to do. I like to discover what sort of impact they want to make... and what their coffee’s like.

“I then set about designing some furniture that suits both their needs, their tastes and their budget. Discussion with the clients (and indeed the odd disagreement) is an essential part of this process as the final design will be a collaboration between me, the maker, and the customer. After all, it’s not all about me,” he jokes with a twinkle in his eye.

Great British Life: Furniture maker Tim Germain with his bench at the Hitcham Community play area.Furniture maker Tim Germain with his bench at the Hitcham Community play area. (Image: Archant)

Using locally sourced wood is an important part of every project. For furniture he uses sustainably-produced, native hardwoods - ash, elm, oak, chestnut, cherry and maple - usually felled from his step-father’s managed woodland at Tattingstone. For his public space benches, he only uses English oak. “It outlasts all other native sustainable timbers – how old is the door on your local church? Our oak is felled locally on a needs-must basis by the volunteers of the fantastic Greenways Countryside Project – no transporting timber half-way around the world for us!”

Great British Life: Tim Germain's bench at the Munnings Museum in Dedham.Tim Germain's bench at the Munnings Museum in Dedham. (Image: Archant 2022)

Great British Life: A marble decoration on one of Tim Germain's benches, which represents the Covid spikes on the virus. The bench, at the Munnings Museum at Dedham, was partly funded by the Arts Council's Covid Fund.A marble decoration on one of Tim Germain's benches, which represents the Covid spikes on the virus. The bench, at the Munnings Museum at Dedham, was partly funded by the Arts Council's Covid Fund. (Image: Archant 2022)

Tim has been working with wood for 22 years, starting in Spain before returning to his native Suffolk. In Barcelona he earned his living by teaching and by translating technical manuals into Spanish which he described as soul destroying. He started his love affair with furniture-making by accident after he collected wooden pallets off the street to adapt into items of furniture for his flat.

“I found I really enjoyed making things. I paid to be an apprentice to a Spanish furniture-maker, but it didn’t go anywhere because the guy was depressed and wasn’t making anything. All I did was titivate his studio. I wasn’t learning anything. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that Suffolk College used to do furniture making courses and I blindly sent them a fax – not knowing who to contact – and, miracle of miracles, they not only found it but they offered me a place. Me and my missus came back to Suffolk with the idea of returning to Spain once I had completed the course, but by then she had learnt English, the Spanish economy had fallen off the edge of a cliff and we happily settled back to life in Suffolk.”

So, what of the future? Tim is currently working on three new ‘wellness’ benches. There's the Ipswich Oasis bench outside St Peter's Church in Ipswich. Then a joint commission between Britten-Pears Arts and the Suffolk Craft Society for a bench outside Snape Maltings to mark the 50th anniversary of the SCS and the completion of the Maltings new flood defences. And a new bench for Langer Park, Felixstowe, for East Suffolk Council as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy.

When they are complete Tim will find himself an interesting piece of furniture to restore his creative juices. “I don’t want to become predictable or, worse still, boring,” he says with a laugh.