Designing the Billet Chair granted John Tree a chance to recenter
Made entirely out of recycled aluminium, the Billet Chair is a testament to how limitations can drive innovation and spark personal growth.

Apropos the Billet Chair, John Tree understood he needed to step outside of his comfort zone right off the bat. Not only was this his introduction to aluminum, but he was also only given a 200-millimeter press and a couple of dies to work with. On top of that, the English designer needed to figure out how to fit a chair through this tiny opening. How did this perplexing scenario come about?
In celebration of the innovative technology of Hydro CIRCAL 100R, Hydro and Norwegian designer Lars Beller Fjetland brought together seven gifted creatives to create objects that showcase its vast capabilities. Crafting the Billet Chair for this special occasion proved to be a climactic event for John Tree as he got to witness (and surrender to) how an object can transform a designer’s perception of himself.

Hydro is at the forefront of empowering sustainable design through innovation. The Norwegian aluminum and renewable energy company’s Hydro CIRCAL 100R is the world’s first industrial-scale aluminum product made entirely of post-consumer scrap. Aluminium can be endlessly recycled without any loss of quality and Hydro CIRCAL 100R has an amazingly low carbon footprint that clocks in below 0.5 kg CO2e per kg. aluminum.

To showcase Hydro’s new 100R recycled aluminum, Inga Sempé, Max Lamb, Andreas Engesvik, Shane Schneck, Rachel Griffin, John Tree, and Philippe Malouin were challenged to use the mono-material guided by their well-established and thriving design philosophies. The seven designers worked with Hydro’s inventive engineers who helped them bring their ideas to a place where the pieces could be mass-produced.

Side by side and thinking out loud, a pivotal moment in the conception of the Billet Chair was when John Tree and Hydro’s team of trailblazers puzzled out the problem of its structure. The inspired solution was to use one profile to form both legs into a backbone to support a seat and back without any extra fittings. The Billet Chair’s legs are separated from this backbone with careful CNC cuts that leave enough of a connection to separately bend them and the backbone in different directions and form a complete seat structure from one single part. The other profile is designed to be mirrored and is used to form both the seat and backrest.

Billet’s inner convolutedness unsurprisingly manifests into its intriguing visual identity and distinct presence. The comfort it offers seems of a particular kind, one that nourishes as much as it has the power to calm one down. An enchanting vitality traced along its body composition, the Billet Chair feels like a companion that can be trusted, that can amuse, and, most valuably, can contribute color to any conversation.

There are layers to its name as well. Not only does the chair begin its life as a billet pushed through a die, but at the end, the object can be recycled back into one. In this way, the Billet Chair acts as a symbol of aluminum’s complete life cycle. A billet also refers to a place where soldiers would set up camp while traveling–a space that allowed them to create a temporary home and to feel somewhat safer and embraced.

John Tree’s father made things out of wood which influenced the foundational chapters of Tree’s journey as a designer. Through his eponymous design studio, he now works with a wide range of high-end companies such as Deadgood, Epson, HAY, NaughtOne, Nine, Tala, Resident, ROLI, and VG&P. Tree is also the recipient of the prestigious Red Dot Design Award as well as Japan’s Gold G Mark Good Design Award.
Following his collaboration with Hydra, the London-based designer has learned that working with new materials brings unmatched freshness to one’s process and perspective. Now, for John Tree, aluminum has become a dream material with its strength-to-weight ratio, supreme recyclability, and malleability–an element that has found its place in his practice. What started as a creative and technical challenge turned out to be a revelation in disguise.