Wallpaper 8

he oldest machinery workshop in Finland is

in Fiskars, a village of craftspeople and creatives about

an hour northwest of Helsinki. This gable-roofed

red brick structure, built in 1837, has been home, since

1993, to Nikari, a maker of high-quality sustainable

wood products. Its catalogue encompasses some of

the most celebrated names in Nordic design – from

Alvar Aalto and Kaj Franck to Louise Campbell and

Claesson Koivisto Rune. So the addition of a South

Korean designer to its roster, for this year’s Wallpaper*

Handmade, has been a gamble of sorts.

To say that Kunsik Choi comes from a variegated

background would be an understatement. Born in

South Korea, he studied industrial design at Politecnico

di Milano before returning to Asia for work. A visit

to Kitani, a Japanese manufacturer specialising in

Nordic design, inspired him to enrol in a three-year

cabinetry course at Swedish craft school Capellagården.

His graduation project, a dollhouse-like storage system

made from 589 pieces of pear, maple and wenge,

found its way to the 2016 Stockholm Furniture Fair,

where it caught the eye of our interiors director

Amy Heffernan, who felt Choi, now based in Malmö,

would make an excellent collaborator for Handmade.

The Wellness + Wonder theme of this year’s

exhibition reminded Choi of the eight dimensions

of wellness, a model proposed by the US Department

of Health and Human Services. It suggests that

overall wellness comprises eight facets: emotional,

environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational,

physical, social and spiritual. ‘Of the eight categories,

I was most interested in the physical,’ says Choi.

His thoughts turned to friends who were exercising

at home with increasing frequency as they didn’t have

time to head to the gym. Traditional gym equipment,

he believes, tends to be a domestic eyesore. So he

wanted to create something that could accommodate

a wide range of physical exercises while blending

seamlessly into a modern, minimalist abode.

Choi’s solution was a wooden bench that is sturdy

enough to double as a plyometric box, comfortable

enough for horizontal workouts, with a detachable

handle on top and a storage rack for dumbbells and

other fitness paraphernalia underneath. »

RIGHT, THE WORKOUT

BENCH BEFORE THE

CORK LAYER IS ADDED

ABOVE, THE BENCH WAS

ASSEMBLED AT NIKARI’S

GABLE-ROOFED RED

BRICK WORKSHOP IN

FISKARS, FINLAND

T

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