Oslo-based furniture studio debuts its first full collection this spring, infusing time-honored artistry with recontextualized material.
By Lissa Raylin Brewer with Claire Butwinick
Photo Marthe Thu @marthethu
Named after a woodworking- and craft-focused educational system that originated in Finland and is taught in Scandinavian primary schools, Oslo-based furniture design firm Studio Sløyd merges regional artistry with ambitious experimentation.
Founded by Herman Ødegaard, Mikkel Jøraandstad, and Tim Knutsen as classmates at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Sløyd emerged in early 2019 as a collective of experimental one-off pieces, and has since expanded on conceptual ideas of contrast, sustainability, and regionalism to underscore a larger oeuvre.
Sløyd will debut its first full collection, “Furu Helvete” this spring, following a preview featuring a chair, stool, and carpet at this year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair. Exploring new possibilities for pine, a material which has been subject to regional disdain, the series introduces contemporary rounded edges crafted from sustainable, locally sourced wood, following the studio’s ethos of recontextualizing material. Below, Sløyd shares the stories and processes behind a few of their pieces on Instagram.
BLIMP CHAIR
“The Blimp chair stands out from our previous work. We created it quickly and intuitively from the idea of contrast. We usually rework our pieces over a long process, but this idea had previously been formed. Like many of our other works, it explores materials and allows for a new perception of it.”
Marthe Thu @marthethu
CARPET
“In contrast with our latest collection, which is made exclusively of pine furniture, the FH.03 carpet brings out the color and texture of the wood and is an abstraction of a pine forest during the fall. The green and brown wool together with the pine wood creates a deeper connection with not just the planks and timber, but with the material as a local variety of tree. The carpet has turned out to be one of the most essential pieces in our collection.”
SPOR CABINET
“Creating Spor’s aluminum handles was a fun process. It’s pretty simple but has many steps. First, we 3D-printed the handle’s shape, then coated the print in a substance with the same consistency as paint, and finally sprinkled a heat-resistant powder that sticks to the coating. This is really the beginning of a different aluminum casting process that involves evaporating the plastic inside (we obviously didn’t want to do that), but really liked the texture of the powder. After the powder had set to the print, we sand-casted it and that’s how we got the rough and shiny aluminum texture.”
(Photographed by Tim Knutsen)
Marthe Thu @marthethu
FH.02 STOOL
“The FH.02 Stool is a part of the collection made from pine. Its design reflects our brand by using traditional materials to shape a contemporary object.”