Wood Grain Takes Center Stage in Henry Marks' CDW Award Design

"Designed by Henry Marks, the sculptural award uses American cherry to celebrate craft as an aesthetic language as much as a way of thinking. For Marks, whose practice bridges exhibition design and fine woodworking, the project also marked a deeply personal turning point. After nearly two decades designing museum, exhibition, and commercial environments across the UK and internationally, the founder of Marks Design began reevaluating his relationship to creativity following both the pandemic and the passing of his father."

"“After years of predominantly desk-based work, I wanted to reconnect with the physical and hands-on side of the creative process,” he explains. Currently completing a Fine Woodwork, Furniture Design & Making Diploma at London’s Building Crafts College, Marks has embraced a more materially driven practice where making itself generates form. Rather than approaching the CDW award as a conventional trophy, he reframed it as an exploration of woodworking."

"“The ‘ah-ha’ moment came when I stopped thinking about the object as a traditional trophy and instead approached it as a sculptural response to woodworking processes,” Marks says. “Once I allowed the geometry to be shaped by machining, offsets, rebates and voids created through making, the design became much more resolved and authentic to the material.”"

"The final object evolved around three core gestures—interlock, offset, and receive—each derived from the physical logic of joinery and timber construction. That material-first approach strongly resonated with the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), which supported the initiative as part of its ongoing a"

The Clerkenwell Design Week Award is a sculptural object shaped by process, material intelligence, and the craft of making. Designed by Henry Marks, it uses American cherry to treat craft as both aesthetic language and a way of thinking. Marks shifted from desk-based design work toward hands-on making after the pandemic and his father’s passing. He is completing a Fine Woodwork, Furniture Design & Making Diploma at London’s Building Crafts College, and he reframed the award as an exploration of woodworking rather than a conventional trophy. The object evolved through three core gestures—interlock, offset, and receive—derived from joinery and timber construction, with geometry shaped by machining, offsets, rebates, and voids.

Read at Design Milk