Bodging Milano originally came about when artist and designer Chris Eckersley was asked to design a chair for the Midlands furniture company Sitting Firm. The resulting chairs - called 'Arden' - were a development on the standard English Windsor Chair.

Later on Chris came across Gudrun Leitz's chairmaking courses and thought he should research green-woodworking (a.k.a 'bodging') to see what it was all about. He sent some pictures back from the woods to Rory Dodd at Designersblock, who said: wouldn't it be great to do something like that and present it at the Salone del Mobile in Milan? So Bodging Milano was born. Gudrun agreed to begin her programme of courses a week early, Chris rounded up his furniture friends, and before we knew it there was a group of designers ready to bodge at Clissett Wood, in deepest Herefordshire.

That was in 2010. From what we thought was a one-off project, Bodging Milano has developed a life of its own, generating an increasingly wide range of experimental activities. In 2012 William Warren instigated a project whereby some of the team have created new designs for Lloyd Loom of Spalding; Gareth Neal got on his bike back to Herefordshire in pursuit of Carbon Negative; and the great Japanese chairmaker Koji Katsuragi came over to join our new group of designers for Bodging Milano 2.

More events to follow...