Tammy Crawford-Rolt is a Bristol-based furniture maker who is doing things differently.

Geometry, nature, organic materials and sustainability are the pillars that define Crawford-Rolt’s work, from the unique wooden pieces she sells, to private furniture commissions, all the way to bike industry trade show installations.

While most of her ‘designer/maker’ peers might rely on a branded motor vehicle, Crawford-Rolt gets around on a custom Clandestine utility bike, her self-sufficient and sustainable mentality extending into all aspects of her working life.

Brooks England spoke to Crawford-Rolt about being part of the urban ‘maker’ community, choosing the bike over a van, and challenging perceptions of serious enterprise.

Tell us a bit about your work and how the bike fits in

“I call myself a designer/maker, but I’m essentially a furniture maker. I take furniture from designing to making, and sometimes I make for other people, other makers, helping them out with fabrication. I’ve been doing it for about five years, but full time for two.

“I don’t have a car, partly for environmental reasons but also I don’t necessarily see the point of having one in the city, so I cycle to my workshop every day. I’m fortunate enough to have a Clandestine bike through my partner Pi, so I have a front rack which enables me to carry as much as possible to and from my workshop. I’m also able to go out and do deliveries of my smaller scale items to people or to shops that stock my stuff.

What can you carry on your bike rack?

“I’ve carried a four-foot Christmas tree horizontally across the front rack. I’ve also carried bags of cement, but that was a bit precarious because of the weight. But work and tool wise, I’ve carried toolboxes or tools in a Eurobox or Festool box which fit quite nicely on the front rack. Then if I’m carrying some of my hanging plant platforms in a basket or a box, I’ll strap that to the front as well. So that can make it all quite tall and wide – not necessarily very heavy, but volume-wise, it’s sometimes as wide as the handlebars and the same for width and depth.

“I think I might have put my dust extractor on my front rack as well, bigger than a Henry Hoover. And then there’s recycling or waste, I take that home as well.

“I’ll often carry around ply wood if I need to take it somewhere like around to Pi to char the timber with his oxyacetylene torch in the Clandestine workshop. The timber can sometimes be almost a metre long, maybe more than that, and wider than my handlebars.”

What motivates you to get out there on the days that you really don’t want to, when it’s horrible outside?

“What does motivate me! I guess I always think that it’s not that far and I can take a change of clothes if it’s really wet. Then it’s just about telling myself, ‘the work’s not going to get done by itself’, so I have to get making.

“If it’s pouring with rain when I leave work, I know it’s warm at home and I can just get changed or have a bath. But it’s harder going to work, especially when it’s dark in the mornings, but I just plan the day, plan what I’m going to do first when I get in to motivate myself to go and get on with it.

“Mudguards help. There was a long period of time during lockdown when I didn’t have mudguards after they got damaged when I was hit by a van, and I really didn’t want to go out, but it wasn’t for too long.”

It seems like your urban lifestyle is representative of how we should be living as we move towards a more healthy and sustainable future.

“I think there is definitely a shift towards people trying to be more sustainable and self-sufficient through things like cycling. It’s quite hard in Bristol because the cycling infrastructure is really poor and people are scared to cycle on the roads, but I know a lot of makers through doing markets around town and everyone has a similar attitude.

“We’re all trying to be a bit more supportive of independent businesses and this smaller scale urban lifestyle.

“It means trying to live a bit more sustainable, more self-sufficient, growing food and produce in your garden or getting involved in a community garden project, and as a maker supporting other makers and small businesses and cafés.

“It almost feels like we have these little pockets within urban pockets, niche little networks in different parts of the city who know each other, and help and support one another, so even though you can feel quite disconnected within the community, there is still that community that you can reach out to.”

Seeing you on your bike might not be the reason someone’s hired you, but when you turn up, they might be happy with their decision.

“Yes, I think a lot of my customers are wanting to be a bit more ethical and sustainable with their choice of custom furniture or the smaller product they’re buying from me or commissioning me to make, so I think that’s something that they hopefully believe strongly in, being sustainable or thinking about the choices around what we make.”