About Us

Leo Scarff has been a creative designer for over 25 years, studying and working in Dublin and across Scandinavia before setting up his own studio in Dublin in 1997. Since then he has worked for numerous clients in the office, retail, hospitality and domestic fields across Ireland, the U.K., Europe, Canada, America and the Carribean. The studio’s primary focus is on lighting and furniture design however our interests extend into sculptural structures of various kinds, very often for large spaces where a dramatic focal point is required. We manufacture and assemble at our workshops nestled in the beautiful Glenade Valley in North Leitrim and we’re proud to support many local and national businesses whether they are material suppliers or component producers
Leo has also lectured extensively on design since 1999 and is a passionate promoter of Irish Art, Design and Architecture. We have wanted to create an online shop for some years and are very proud to launch this new platform for our work and hope you like our initial collection. Please take a look at our main studio web site www.leoscarffdesign.com for more information on our work. We also have our commercial furniture brand Hiberform www.hiberform.com which has details of our office interior products.

Materials

One of our favourite materials to work with is Baltic Birch Plywood which we machine using a CNC router to produce many of our products. This high quality multi-layer plywood is durable and strong yet lightweight. It has the fewest voids of any plywood and has a beautiful fine grain due to a short growing season at northern latitudes. Certain products use high pressure laminate or Linoleum for horizontal surfaces.

Finishes

All our Plywood products are beautifully finished with 3 coats of satin Acrylic lacquer. Unfinished wood becomes dirty and stained very quickly so correct finishing is important for us so our customers get a quality product that looks good well into the future. Clear Water based Acrylic lacquer retains a paler natural look and has almost no odour unlike solvent based lacquers. This finish can be cleaned with a mild cleaner and wiped dry immediately. As with any indoor furniture the products must be kept in a dry, damp free environment. Aged surfaces can be protected with a solvent free beeswax spray found in most hardware stores. This should be applied sparingly and polished off immediately with a lint free cloth.

Packaging and Shipping

For our packaging we try to limit plastic usage and generally aim to use recycled cardboard for boxes and internal reinforcements. This can be easily recycled after use. Our products are designed to be flat packed for shipping thus reducing the energy and resources given to transportation

Design

Our focus is to create functional, simple products that fulfil essential needs. We try to be conscious of the environment and eliminate harmful materials, processes or finishes where possible. As designers and consumers we can all play our part in creating a sustainable future for our children by buying less, and buying quality or easily recycled products. Many of our products try to replace ones which may have traditionally been made in plastic which can so often break easily. Creating wooden versions not only looks great and increases the products life span but makes it simple to recycle. We try to design with DFD (Design For Disassembly) and Life Cycle principles in mind. We believe good design should start with solving real problems, derive intelligent solutions to those problems and deliver them with the best materials and techniques available whether thats cutting edge digital fabrication or hand craft.