There’s a trend out there in furniture design that caught my attention. It’s a small detail, but I believe it holds a certain amount of significance.

Those grooves all around the surface of the sideboard are actually hand-carved solid wood slats that had been applied piece by piece. It’s useful in hiding the gaps and shadows, if the piece needs to seem like a solid, uninterrupted mass. It looks elegant and timeless, and it seems every designer found a certain way of employing it.

LINES – Afteroom – The fronts of the two sideboards are produced with 20 mm HDF (stronger MDF), cut from a 35 mm-wide wavy texture as part of the surface. Afteroom has designed a handleless living room cabinet that opens using IKEA’s push system. It comes with a top plate made in 12 mm black Corian and powder-coated black steel legs.

Korint Cabinet – Snickeriet – wood used is aspen, cottonwood and birch, selected for their specific properties and which are stained a deep black and then lacquered

Alchimia – Edoardo Colzani Design Studio – Sideboard in Spessart Oak and Canaletto walnut with doors and drawers plants. Structure and drawers fronts  in solid oak or canaletto walnut. Hinged doors in cement or matte lacquered.

The reason why I want to focus on it is because it is a reminder that industrial designers still like to incorporate handcrafted details into their furniture pieces. While minimalism is at its peak, small decorative gestures like a repetitive pattern or a geometric recessed handle manage to creep into it and elevate an otherwise mundane sideboard. Sometimes these gestures are born out of a need for diversity, a fanciful desire, or a solution to a problem.

And a common problem in interior design is controlling patterns and alignements between elements. The next example is a project for incorporated storage. The length of the needed cupboards was long in a narrow, uneven space, so it had to be suppressed. So the architects chose the same small repetitive pattern that concealed the doors, thus avoiding a difficult task of having to size everything according to a universal module in pursuit of a balanced outcome. The pattern hides the different sized doors resulted from the uneven geometry of the space and decorates what would’ve been a big blank surface.

A Cesena Penthouse – Tisselli Studio – enamelled, cylindrical wooden elements have been deliberately selected at a range of diameter to create an edgy, textural look

Furthermore, this would not be possible if durable materials weren’t used in this. Durability being a necessity as storage becomes increasingly fused with the structural elements of a space. If they’re gonna be part of our walls, then they should be as long lasting as possible.

This comes as an advantage because it encourages us to turn our attention away from mass production methods of producing furniture.

Substituting solid woods with cheaper alternatives, such as particle boards and MDF1  is the typical approach of most manufacturers today. So, the less visible parts will be made of particle boards, while the fronts will be made of MDF. And, in time, these cabinets will not age very well. Doors will start to look crooked and will not close properly, because particle boards don’t hold screws very well and start sagging from the weight of the heavier fronts. Therefore, this strategy doesn’t result in longlasting pieces.

Instead, choosing better materials like HDF, plywood and hardwoods (that are locally sourced) will result in higher quality pieces. And by doing so, it’s instinctive to take advantage of the natural properties of these versatile materials which can be carved, lasercut, taken apart and glued back together and still maintain their structure. This idea managed to inspire designers to look back into handcrafts and try to reincorporate them into modern pieces that try to please both contemporary minimalism and old-school wood crafting techniques.

A kitchen is also a form of custom storage as the previous project. This project didn’t had to face the same spatial difficulties, therefore the typical modularity has been maintained. The pattern here is contained by the recessed handles that stand out on the grey background of the linoleum. It works as a preview to what it looks on the inside. The kitchen was integraly made of solid oak and the joints between the wooden parts are put on display. Much of the beauty of the design is achieved through the versatility of the oak to be carved and reassembled into an integral almost seamless body.

Nebbegårdsbakken Kitchen – Nicolaj Bo – The cabinets are covered with charcoal gray linoleum, the grips are built in solid oak and all drawers are built in finger-jointed solid oak

The main advantage is not only a longer lifespan, but also the environmental awareness that comes with choosing woods that can be revived, upcycled or restored. Wood that is responsibly sourced is actually the only renewable building material around—trees that are harvested for their wood can be replenished by new growth.2

Patterns stood out to me because it’s been a long time since minimal furnishing became the most desired style in contemporary interior design. It feels now, though, that patterns can bring a new variation to the esthetic that surrounds us, without going backwards too much into nostalgia. As it comes from new ways of interacting with our environment and new esthetic sensibilities, they feel new and unspoiled by passed meanings. And they might even evolve into an entirely new trend soon enough.