With an engineering background and love of the sea from growing up in South Devon, Andrew Dominic found his passion for working with wood on classic yachts in the Mediterranean. He honed his skills at Rowden Atelier in North Devon in 2008/09, where he learnt the fine art of furniture making and his interest in design began.
In 2009 Andrew Dominic Furniture was established in Cape Town, where he set up his first workshop with his South African wife Susie. Over 10 years Andrew built a team of highly skilled craftsmen, most of whom arrived with little to no woodworking skills and are still based in his Cape Town workshop.
In 2019 Andrew and Susie returned to South Devon to open a second workshop in the South Hams where they now live with their family – taking his journey and love of wood full circle back to his roots.
Today, Andrew continues to be hands on making furniture whilst heading the team in both countries, alongside designing the collections and working closely with private clients, architects and interior designers on bespoke projects and collaborations out of both workshops. His furniture is shipped worldwide, with representation in New York and Sydney.
Andrew’s style embodies a deep love and understanding of the intricacies and diversity of wood, and embraces the hand-crafted nature of joinery. His passion for craftsmanship and eye for detail is instilled in each maker who undergoes a rigorous apprenticeship when joining the team, ensuring his commitments to quality and craft are embedded in every piece of furniture that’s made under the Andrew Dominic name. Andrew sees training as an ongoing and continuous process as new products are developed and the boundaries of specifications are pushed. He believes sustainability isn’t a destination but a process of learning and improving, which he takes to heart in his work by using select hardwoods from sustainably managed forests, natural oil finishes and water based glues, and managing workshop wood waste by composting it, adding it back into the natural life cycle.
“ My design direction has evolved from being a maker. Ideas, experiments and new methods have all come to me in the thick of making and working out what we can do predominantly with low-tech manual tools and machines. I refine, we make, I refine again and again. I enjoy the creative process of working through ideas to get to the essence of a design “