The hand-carved wooden furniture collection by designer Didi Ng Wing Yin features large distorted benches and a lampshade made of sawdust, which is on display at Helsinki Design Week.
The furniture forms part of the annual Habitare furniture exhibition held during Helsinki Design Week.
Hong Kong-born designer and maker Yin creates his amorphous pieces almost entirely out of wood as his “way of working a little against traditional industrial design.”
“That’s why no two shapes are the same,” Yin told Dezeen in Habitare.
One such design is a neutral-colored wood-veneer lampshade made from thin shavings sliced with a Japanese hand plane. The mulch sheets were then laminated together to strengthen them.
“You want to touch the wood — the more you see texture, the more you want to feel it,” continued the designer, who said touch is at the core of his personal design process.
Another piece is a geometric panel of untreated wood, mounted on steel legs to create a low bench and sprayed with a hot pink India ink dye. Yin also stained a lumpy fir chair with iridescent green ink.
“The idea is not to make the wood not look like wood, but to make sure it doesn’t look ordinary,” he explained.
The Helsinki-based designer said he mainly uses locally available softwoods to make his furniture, such as spruce and pine.
“I like that he doesn’t use fancy hardwoods like oak or mahogany,” he said. (Softwoods) are more modest, I think.”
Also appearing in the collection are three matching black chunky stools, all in very different compositional designs.
Organic-shaped, intricately pleated vases are placed atop an angular wood-ply base, while Yin also creates monolithic sculptures carved from single pieces of light wood.
Yin recently turned his focus to furniture design after working as an interior designer in Hong Kong, after which he studied for a master’s degree in interior architecture at Aalto University in Helsinki.
As City Design Week continues in the Finnish capital, take a look at projects showcased at previous editions of the event, including textile fillers made from plants and essential furniture designed specifically for people affected by natural disasters and the ongoing refugee crisis.
Photographed by Didi Ng Wing Yin.
Helsinki Design Week takes place from 8 to 17 September 2023 in Helsinki, Finland. Check out Dezeen’s events guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.