Gym Dandy

‘StayFit’ bench, by Kunsik and Nikari.

- TF Chan

The 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.