Nothing to sneeze at: one of Melbourne's most-loathed trees wins a second act

The Guardian

17-05-2025

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.
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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.
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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