Woodworkers devoted to solid maple
Maple Sky Works is a Tokyo-based woodworking studio building garden gazebos and heavy outdoor furniture from solid maple timber, using techniques passed down through generations of Japanese carpentry.
A workshop that started in Shibuya
Maple Sky Works began in a small joinery shed off a Shibuya side street, built on a single principle: garden structures should be made from solid timber, not composite substitutes.
That workshop has since moved to a larger space in Higashiogu, Arakawa, with room to season timber and dry-assemble a full gazebo frame before it goes out to a garden. Every gazebo and furniture piece that leaves our doors is designed, cut, and joined in-house rather than outsourced to a factory line, which is why we can stand behind the structural integrity of everything we build.
Timber chosen before it is ever cut
We source maple from sawmill partners who season their stock for a minimum of twelve months in open-air storage before it is ever offered to us.
A member of our team inspects every batch by hand, rejecting boards with hidden checks, uneven density, or grain that won't hold a clean joint. This slower, more deliberate sourcing costs more than buying pre-cut lumber in bulk, but it is the reason our frames don't twist or split after their first winter outdoors.
Joinery practiced over three generations
Our lead woodworkers trained under carpenters who themselves trained under their fathers, carrying mortise-and-tenon techniques forward with only small refinements.
Apprentices in our workshop spend their first year almost entirely on hand tools before they're allowed near a structural joint, a pace that feels slow until you see how it changes the quality of the work. We believe this is the only way traditional joinery survives into a third generation rather than being simplified away.
What we refuse to compromise on
Four commitments run through every commission regardless of size: solid timber only, hand-cut joinery, transparent pricing, and a willingness to say no to work we can't build to standard.
We have turned down commissions where a client's timeline didn't allow timber to season properly, and we'll do so again, because a gazebo that fails in its second winter costs everyone more than the delay would have. These aren't marketing lines — they're the questions our own workshop leads ask before any project is accepted.
Two decades, one unchanged standard
From a single joinery shed to a studio with a dedicated design team, our workshop has grown steadily rather than quickly, adding capability without ever standardising away the hand-built quality clients come to us for.
Each expansion — a second workbench line, a design department, a permanent installation crew — was added only once the previous stage was running at the standard we expect of ourselves. That discipline is why a commission from us today reflects the same joinery philosophy as one built twenty years ago.
Every piece backed by our word
Every gazebo and furniture commission leaves our workshop with a structural workmanship guarantee, covering joinery and frame integrity well beyond the delivery date.
If a joint ever loosens under normal use, we return to assess and repair it rather than treating that as the client's problem to solve. We keep detailed records of every commission's timber batch and joinery drawings specifically so that any future repair matches the original build precisely.