Nothing to sneeze at: one of Melbourne's most-loathed trees wins a second act
Long the darlings of municipal landscaping, London plane trees line boulevards from New York to Johannesburg. In Australian cities people have lived, worked and sneezed alongside them for generations. Revered by urban planners for their good looks, impressive carbon sequestering capabilities and hardiness, the hybrid plant (made from American sycamore and oriental plane) is an optimum city tree – in measured doses.
But while their verdant majesty in summer and handsome silhouettes in winter are widely admired, their reign of eye-watering, throat-scratching terror throughout spring has made them notorious.
While some claim that we aren't nearly as allergic to them as we think we are, the City of Melbourne has committed to radically diversifying its urban forest in the coming years, reducing London planes' prevalence in the central business district from 63% to 20%. Since 2019 the local government has removed 449 of them.
While most of the trees retired from civic duties become mulch, Andy Ward, a furniture designer and the curator of Melbourne Design Week's Goodbye London Plane, has seized the opportunity to give at least one of them a more lasting second act. Inspired by an Instagram post he saw years earlier by the inner-city timber mill Revival, Ward invited eight makers to parlay the salvaged remains of a newly sacrificed tree into stools, lighting, vases and more.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning
He hopes the project will help reframe people's perspectives of these much-maligned marvels and encourage more designers and makers to find ways to immortalise these silent witnesses to the city's history, bringing them from the streets and into homes.
Plane trees, he says, 'are so iconic and polarising, but no one seems to realise how beautiful the material is'. The timber is 'really forgiving' to work with and offers a 'stunning' grain; he likens its malleability to that of sycamore, while being 'slightly softer than American oak' – and a whole lot easier to work with than native hardwoods.
Each piece comes from a single tree felled in Gipps Street, Collingwood. In 2022 the team at Revival began their urban timber recovery project; the following year they managed to rescue this 75-year-old behemoth from Yarra city council's chipper with just hours to spare.
Rob Neville, Revival's founder, says the tree yielded more than five tonnes of usable timber which has been distributed to more than a dozen 'custodians' – from knife makers to architecture students – all charged with ensuring that the material is given the respect it deserves.
'Treating these trees as waste would have been considered insane back in the day, now it's the norm – we want to help change that,' he says. Revival is working closely with a number of councils in Melbourne to get more felled municipal trees into the hands of designers and makers.
Sign up to Saved for Later
Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips
after newsletter promotion
As a lover of the plane tree and an advocate of more sustainable practices in the design world, Ben Mooney, the owner of Ma House Supply Store in Collingwood, where the project will be shown, says he immediately saw the potential of Ward's concept. He hopes that by foregrounding reclaimed timber, the project will not only elevate the status of the London plane but also a more regenerative, respectful way of working with resources that are too often squandered. 'If this helps get the word out, it's a success.'
Georgie Szymanski, a timber furniture maker based in Preston, has been crafting art deco-inspired pieces for the last five years. When Ward and Mooney reached out with the concept, she was intrigued. 'To be able to utilise this material that is otherwise just going to waste is so cool,' she says.
Szymanski has created a traditional tea table from the timber. The grain, she says, is an unexpected delight. 'It's shimmery, with this freckled appearance – it's crazy how underused it is.'
Having previously regarded the trees as little more than a ubiquitous irritant, Szymanski says the project has given her a new-found respect and fondness for them: 'It is 100% a timber I'd use again.'
Goodbye London Plane is showing at Ma House Supply Store during Melbourne Design Week, until Sunday 25 May
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Blair Kinghorn's Lions tour delayed amid Toulouse final and Pacific rowers
Blair Kinghorn's arrival down under for the British & Irish Lions tour has been delayed by the small matter of a Top 14 final commitment with Toulouse, who play Jonny Gray's Bordeaux in Paris on Saturday night. When it comes to taking the long way round to Australia, however, Kinghorn has nothing on a trio of fellow Edinburgh Academy alumni who are due to make landfall in time for the third Test in Sydney after 120 days spent rowing some 9,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. The Maclean brothers — Lachlan, Ewan and Jamie — set off in April in a 28-foot carbon fibre boat, Rose Emily, named after their late sister, in a bid to raise £1m for clean water projects in Madagascar.
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Gibson-Park and Keenan injury concerns for Lions
Ireland pair Jamison Gibson-Park and Hugo Keenan are injury concerns for the British and Irish Lions before their first game in Australia against the Western Force on tourists arrived in Perth after a 20-hour journey from Dublin via Doha, Qatar, with head coach Andy Farrell revealing lingering issues with scrum-half Gibson-Park (glute) and full-back Keenan (calf), who both missed Leinster's victory in the United Rugby Championship (URC) centre Huw Jones has recovered from an Achilles issue though and is available for the opening game of the tour at Optus Stadium."We'll see how they pull up in midweek," Farrell said of Gibson-Park and Keenan."Huw Jones is good, he's been training. He trained fully with us last week so he's up and running."The Lions are likely to field a side including players from Leinster, Bath and Leicester, despite players from those clubs joining up with the squad late after their respective URC and Premiership finals. Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe was pictured with ice on his foot during the Lions' disappointing 28-24 defeat by Argentina at Aviva Stadium on Friday, but Farrell confirmed there were no fresh injury concerns."We're here to build for what's going to be a fantastic Test series. We want to play some good rugby along the way," he added."We'll find out more about each other as we keep on going. Of course we'll analyse what went on against Argentina and why, but that's all part of the journey - to understand where we need to go next."It's great to be here, this is what it's all about. We're here for a good time. Hopefully we can start this part of the tour off really well on Saturday."
Times
6 hours ago
- Times
16 of the best hotels in Norway
There's no shortage of variety when it comes to Norway's accommodation scene. Among our favourites are swanky, design-led hotels at the foot of mighty mountains; avant garde city escapes hugging the shores of bluer-than-blue fjords; fire-warmed log cabins secreted away in forests where reindeer roam; igloos freshly sculpted with the first dump of winter snow; and an ultra-luxe boutique hideaway with a Michelin-starred restaurant in its basement. Masters of reinvention, the Norwegians also love to breathe new life into old bones: cue 16th-century trading posts, fish warehouses, banks or barns reborn as glam places by venerable architects. Hotels here aren't cheap but, then again, you'll never forget seeing the rising sun illuminate a fretwork of fjords or the northern lights dancing above high Arctic peaks. This is our pick of the best hotels in Norway. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue £ | SPA | POOL | Best for a natural high Perched atop Ronvikfjellet and rising high above the Arctic city of Bodo like a beacon of sustainability, Wood Hotel is a vision of Scandi-style, back-to-nature minimalism. Slotting neatly into the gorgeous surrounding landscape of snow-dusted peaks and forests, the hotel is constructed mainly from wood and powered by solar energy. It bills itself as an 'outdoor hotel' and rightly so, with trails threading up into the mountains, ebike rental and a nearby via ferrata — protected climbing route — to try. That's if you can drag yourself away from the hotel itself, which charms with its restaurant putting imaginative twists on revived Norwegian family recipes, eighth-floor heated outdoor pool gazing out over city, peak and fjord, and traditional steam sauna. Midnight sun or northern lights? You choose. ££ | SPA | POOL | Best for art deco ambience Bringing a touch of glamour to Oslo's well-heeled Frogner neighbourhood, just steps from the Royal Palace, this addition to the Norwegian capital's hotel scene is a knockout. Behind the red-brick, 1930s façade of the city's former electrical company, the London and New York design practice GrecoDeco has worked wonders. Cue 231 rooms and suites that expertly weave together original features like wood panelling, chandeliers, patterned tiles, a palette of deep reds and greens and art deco patterns with contemporary simplicity and comfort. But you don't just come to sleep, you come for culture: in the hotel's library, its retro, gold-kissed cinema and its brasserie where jazz bands regularly play. Add to this a rooftop Norwegian-Japanese restaurant, street food and cocktail bar, a spa with sleep clinic, an outdoor pool with far-reaching views over city and fjord, and beautifully revamped public baths, festooned with Per Krohg's mosaics of swimming women and seals, and you are looking at one very special place to stay. Read our full review of Sommerro £££ | SPA | Best for rustic relaxation Spread across a cluster of dark-timber, turf-roofed houses, on a hillside looking out across west-coast Storfjord and the Sunnmore Alps, Storfjord really couldn't be more Norwegian. Inside, the boutique retreat seduces with candles, fireplaces, an intimate spa with a forest-facing Jacuzzi, and a low-key gourmet restaurant bigging up local produce. The atmosphere in the nouveau-rustic rooms is as warm as a hug, with handcrafted log walls, muted colours, tweeds and down duvets. Borrow walking poles, fishing rods (there are some serious cod to catch in these waters), snowshoes and boats. Or find your own private nook to read, write, rest and dream. • Discover our full guide to Norway ££ | Best for a woodland escape Forget bending down on one knee and popping open a ring box: when Kjartan wanted to propose to the love of his life — Sally, from Sydney — he built her the treehouse of her wildest dreams. And so the seeds for this staggering retreat were sown. Perched like eyries in tall pines above the mountain-rimmed, sapphire-blue Hardanger Fjord and reached via a stiff uphill hike, these sustainable, wooden, shingle-clad tree houses in Odda have been designed to resemble Norwegian pine cones. Architects were brought in to help design the rustic-chic, black-alder interiors, with wraparound windows framing fjord views, handcrafted chairs and underfloor heating. Dreamiest of the lot are the mountaintop treehouses, which come with hand-carved wooden bathtubs, beds lowered from the ceiling, and sensational views over the forest canopy. Breakfast includes locally baked sourdough, eggs, juice and coffee. £££ | Best for food lovers 'Boutique' has become a bit of a catch-all, but Eilert Smith in the fjordside city of Stavanger really nails it: just 12 individually designed rooms echoing the building's 1930s architecture, and three-Michelin-star, 25-cover RE-NAA in the basement, riffing creatively on the finest seafood plucked from local waters. This is not just a hotel but an act of love — architects have aimed for the avant garde, but have carefully preserved original curves, geometric patterns and modernist materials, such as travertine, brass, marble and wood. Furniture is custom-made, colours are pure and the light streaming in through slim horizontal windows is quite special. Plump for the penthouse suite, spun around a spiral staircase and looking out across Stavanger harbour. ££ | SPA | POOL | Best for a superb spa Hunkering down on the northern shore of slender Tingvoll fjord in western Norway, this charmingly whitewashed, timber-fronted hotel is a delicious slice of preserved heritage: it acted as a trading post back in the 1500s, when ships from Holland sailed here to buy timber. Most rooms have soothingly pretty views of the fjord and are classic in design — soft greys and creams, warm lighting and tarted-up antiques. The restaurant is more of a traditional, woody affair, with a chef taking pride in local sourcing from nearby farms and fjords. The clincher, however, is Badehuset Spa, lodged in a converted, glass-walled 18th-century granary overlooking the fjord, with hot baths, a sauna and luscious treatments. £££ | Best for seaside style On a peninsula slinging its hook into the North Sea, Alesund is one of Norway's most vibrant and fetching port towns, with a parade of gabled, candy-coloured art nouveau houses casting mirror images in the Brosundet canal. An intimate, family-run affair, this reimagined fishing warehouse combines one-of-a-kind architecture with minimalist edge and contemporary elegance. A huge fire blazes away in the lobby, which soars up to a central gallery, and rooms riff modern on the Nordic look in charcoals, chocolates and whites, with hints of the building's original flair in arched windows and exposed beams. They've thought of the lot: a corner café for locally brewed coffee, much-lauded restaurant Apotekergata No 5 serving just-caught seafood, a cocktail bar and a glam fitness and wellness area. Romance-wise, it has to be room 47 in Molja Lighthouse at the end of the jetty. £££ | Best for city life An ode to the 19th-century Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg, this modern classic hotel is run by his descendants. Originally Bergen's swankiest bank, the building echoes its past with marble columns, polished granite and weighty chandeliers, while taking a definite leap into more contemporary waters with sleek furnishings, bespoke wall coverings and occasional flashes of punchy colour. You're right in the heart of things here on Vagsallmenningen, one of Bergen's most photogenic squares, just paces from historic Bryggen waterfront, the fish market and the funicular trundling up to Mount Floyen. The handsome brasserie delivers afternoon tea with a splash of sophistication, while on Sunday evenings the bar swings to live jazz. • Best places to visit in Norway• Great hotels in Oslo ££ | Best for a sense of history Walaker reclines dream-like on the shores of Lustrafjord, which reaches out a startlingly blue finger to touch the high, glaciated peaks of Jotunheimen and Jostedalsbreen national parks. It's here that you'll find Norway's oldest hotel — run by the Nitter family since 1690, it's a historic retreat that doesn't give a damn about the 21st century. The cream-timber villa sits in lush floral gardens spilling down to the fjord, and rooms charm with heritage wall coverings and heavy antique furnishings. Dinner — served at 7.30pm sharp — is a set-menu feast of fjord-fished seafood, forest venison, mushrooms and fruits. Old-fashioned and insanely idyllic, Walaker Hotel is somewhere you'll remember and rave about for ever. £££ | SPA | POOL | Best for five-star luxury Trondheim is Norway's historic city poster-child, with its heart-stealing fjord setting, upbeat vibe and flurry of great restaurants, cafés and museums. Do it in style by staying at the Britannia, which opened its doors in 1870 to attract British aristocrats off to fish for the world's best salmon. Looking dashing after a top-to-toe makeover, its rooms evoke a Nordic winter in silvers, whites and greys, with handcrafted Hastens beds and Carrara marble bathrooms. Top billing, if budget is irrelevant, goes to the vast, extravagantly opulent Tower Suite, with its own grand piano and butler kitchen. After a romp around town, the skylit Palmehaven (for afternoon tea), domed spa, Michelin-starred restaurant and dark, sexy wine cellar await. £££ | SPA | POOL | Best for boutique style A burst of dark, new-Nordic glamour on Tjuvholmen ('Thief Island'), right opposite the Renzo Piano-designed Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, the Thief is Oslo's hottest boutique ticket. Nordic architects, interior designers and curators conjured up this wonder in glass and granite, filling it with nooks, flattering light, rich colours and eye-grabbing works by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. Gold-kissed rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows capture the light and moods of Oslofjord, the rooftop restaurant plays up inventive, season-driven cuisine, and the backlit spa and grotto-like pool make this hands-down Norway's sexiest city escape. Read our full review of The Thief ££ | Best for a base in the wilderness As the final frontier before the North Pole, Svalbard is where Norway takes a serious turn for the wilder — an archipelago home to more polar bears than people. The final flicker of civilisation is Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, the world's northernmost settlement. In winter, this is a wondrous place of bone-chilling cold and stark beauty, best seen by dog sled or snowmobile as the aurora flashes away in the sky. Conservation-focused Basecamp Explorer is a cracking base, designed like a modern-rustic trapper's lodge, with rooms filled with driftwood, sealskins, maps and pictures of explorers, and a snug lounge for post-expedition chilling. Better still, they arrange all kinds of fun, from glacier hikes to dog-sledding and multi-day snowmobile trips into the Arctic proper. ££ | Best for great hospitality Out on a limb, Roisheim sits on the cusp of Jotunheimen National Park, where glaciers glint atop dark, fang-like mountains and Norway's highest peak — 2,469m (8,100ft) Galdhopiggen — rises. Set discreetly between the pleats and folds of forested slopes, this reborn 19th-century coaching inn enchants with 14 tar-painted, turf-roofed, timber houses — all faithfully restored with features such as fireplaces, hand-painted four-poster beds and wooden bathtubs. Artists, playwrights, weary travellers and mountaineers have long flocked here for warm hospitality, big wilderness and food that sings heartily of the seasons — a winning mix. £££ | Best for a real igloo experience In Alta in the high Arctic, the aurora regularly dances in clear night skies — as you might expect from the town that is home to the Northern Lights Cathedral. In the snows of winter, from late December to early April, Sorrisniva is magical. Ice sculptors are drafted in to handcraft its igloos, where you can spend a surprisingly comfortable night in a reindeer hide-draped ice bed after a day snowshoeing, tobogganing, or dog or reindeer sledding. There's even a chance to get crafty and hook onto a two-hour crash course in ice sculpting. Grog at the ice bar warms you up nicely for dinners expertly knocked up with locally sourced reindeer, moose, seafood and wild berries. Should you be planning to tie the knot, there's even an ice chapel. Igloos fully booked? Retreat to the Scandi-chic Arctic Wilderness Lodge instead. £££ | Best for brilliant views More nature-inspired art installation than hotel, Juvet is beautifully caught between mountain and fjord. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls act as the frame for changing lights, weathers and entrancing views over forested slopes and the Valldola River. The log houses are contemporary, monochrome and purist in design: from cubic, stilt-perched 'Landscape Rooms' to tinier, simpler 'Bird Houses'. The stripped-back look and lack of curtains is intentional so as not to detract from the wonder of the outdoors; for more space and luxury, book the Writer's Lodge. After skiing, rafting or soul-searching hiking, return to the cocoon-like warmth of the riverside bathhouse and eat incredibly well in the revamped century-old cow barn. £££ | Best for icy beauty Far north of the Arctic Circle, this eco-minded fantasy escape sits in a ludicrously beautiful spot, where the dark Finnmark Alps whoosh up above steel-blue Jokelfjord and a glacier calves directly into the sea. If the setting is dramatic, the modern-day glass igloos, or geodesic domes, are coolly understated in true Scandi style: icy palettes of blues and greys, goose-down duvets, slickly designed furniture, wood-fired stoves, telescopes and vast windows for fjord, star and northern lights gazing. After a day boating out to the glacier, whale watching, dog sledding or ski touring, your hosts whip up feasts of local reindeer, fish and berries. Oh, and did we mention the sauna and outdoor hot tub by the sea? Isbreen is open year round, but it's pure Narnia in winter. Additional reporting by Kerry Christiani and Richard Mellor • Best things to do in Norway• Best northern lights tours What's your favourite hotel in Norway? Please share in the comments below
