WISA PLYWOOD
Story | 08/30/2024 09:30:38 | 3 min Read time

Designer Tapio Anttila trusts in WISA® plywood

Anu Ritvanen

Editor, Tulus

The beauty of Finnish plywood appeals to designer Tapio Anttila, who has designed numerous pieces of furniture and accessories using WISA® plywood.

Award-winning Finnish designer and interior architect Tapio Anttila uses Finnish wood and plywood in his furniture and other products. 

"WISA® plywood products are truly versatile and aesthetically superior wood products that provide not only beautiful surfaces but also strong structures. I often like to leave the striped edge structure formed by the veneers visible as part of the design," Tapio describes his relationship with WISA plywood. 

Tapio Anttila is a long-standing furniture designer who has designed furniture and accessories for both domestic and foreign brands, and the fascination with Finnish wood has endured for decades. Since 2016, Anttila has primarily worked on his own Tapio Anttila Collection. 

Tapio Anttila's sofas, chairs, tables, storage furniture, lighting and other interior design products often use plywood either as an integral part of the product's visible design or in hidden structures. In addition to aesthetics, plywood has the advantage of being strong, so that even thin structures can be durable.

 
 

"Finnish WISA-Birch plywood is a fantastic material, even better than we realise here in Finland. You don't have to travel far to have a wow effect with plywood." 

With ASKI shelves and lamps, for example, the grain pattern of birch plywood stands out in both natural-coloured varnished and coloured stained products. 

According to Anttila, the WISA plywood selection offers designers grades and thicknesses to suit a wide variety of applications. In addition to furniture, Anttila has also used plywood in, for instance, exhibition structures and shop fittings. This year, he has created a unique exhibition stand from WISA-Birch plywood to showcase his products at the Habitare fair in Finland.

 

UPM Grada can be formed into any shape

As a creative designer, Anttila rejoices in innovation. One of them is UPM Plywood's UPM Grada, a thermoformable wood panel that can be shaped by heat and pressure. The process involves heating, shaping and cooling the finished panel. According to Anttila, UPM Grada allows for more freedom in design compared to traditional veneer pressing methods that use glued veneers. Using UPM Grada, one can shape only part of the component, and multiple pressing directions can be used.

"Even with a fairly modest mould, UPM Grada can be used to form prototypes or custom carpentry. UPM Grada is also suitable for efficient mass production."

 

Lasting beauty from the ground up 

Anttila swears by common sense in design, material selection, product life cycle and avoidance of waste. UPM Plywood follows the same responsible approach in its own operations and raw material sourcing. It is easy for Anttila to sign up to UPM's criteria regarding the origin of raw materials. 

"For the designer, WISA plywood is a good solution because the raw material comes from sustainably managed, certified forests and the plywood itself is of high quality, strong, dimensionally accurate and easy to work with," Anttila says, describing the origin and properties of the plywood. 

For Anttila, the beauty of wood lies precisely in its liveliness and uniqueness. To demand a perfectly knot free or perfectly even wood surface is tantamount to demanding a plastic-like smoothness from a natural material instead of its natural character.  

Common sense is in order here too. Healthy knots and natural colour variation are part of the nature of wood, even in furniture.  

"However, the variation must be controlled. The quality classes of WISA plywood meet the promised standards. Finnish birch plywood is exactly the kind of plywood that one can proudly showcase," says Anttila, encouraging other designers to get to know WISA plywood. 

 
 
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