On the heels of the 20th anniversary edition of Helsinki Design Week, Dezeen reporter Jane Englefield rounds up five enduring Finnish design principles she spotted at the city’s biggest industry festival.
Helsinki Design Week 2025 took place from 5 to 14 September in various locations across Finland’s capital. This year marked two decades of the event, offering a glimpse into the local design scene.
Finnish design is traditionally recognised for its utilitarianism and close relationship to nature. Here are five ways that architects and designers are continuing to channel time-honoured principles like these for a contemporary audience:
Photo courtesy of JKMM Architects
Democratic design
This year’s festival marked the conclusion of an 18-month international competition to design Finland’s much-anticipated new waterfront Museum of Architecture and Design, set to open in 2030.
During a press conference, it was revealed that local studio JKKM Architects won the open, anonymous contest with its proposal for a recycled brick-clad museum, aimed at “democratising the tools of design”.
This sentiment was echoed at Aalto University, where a group of designers and chemists joined forces to create a “cookbook” called Marvellous Materials, encouraging kids to raid their kitchen cupboards and compost bins for natural waste materials. These are then used to make “recipes” ranging from biodegradable glitter to orange-peel playdough, in an effort to teach sustainability from a young age.
“The researchers got together and thought, hold on, if we really want to change the world and make sustainability innate for people to really understand it, then what we have to do is work together to make a kids’ book,” explained Sarah Hudson of Aalto University, where Marvellous Materials is on display as part of the university’s annual collaborative exhibition Designs for a Cooler Planet until 28 October.
Photo by Esa Kapila
Proximity to nature
Finns are known for their connection to nature, with the average citizen said to live within only 700 metres of a forest. This celebration of the natural world can be found throughout Designs for a Cooler Planet at Aalto University, where participants looked for alternatives to carbon-intensive materials.
Among the projects on show is a protein-based adhesive that works underwater. Informed by the way mussels and barnacles attach themselves to rocks, the team combined DNA fragments from both of these sea creatures and cloned them into bacteria, which produced protein molecules. The result is a natural glue that the team hopes might one day be used to repair coral reefs or heal human tissue injuries.
Another group of researchers showcased building blocks made from 3D-printed yeast biomass. True to a country with almost 80 per cent of its landmass covered by trees, the exhibition also features timber-centric projects, including a wood-based biofoam called Woamy and cellulose pregnancy test packaging by student Deborah Kumagai.
Wood appeared on a larger scale at the Habitare furniture fair, where Finnish-Italian architecture studio Collaboratorio designed a monumental pavilion based on the theme of “touch”.
The installation was anchored by elm tree stumps removed during extension works at the National Museum of Finland, which is currently closed for renovation. Flooring, meanwhile, was made from a mix of fresh Finnish lichen and fragments of reclaimed Carrara marble salvaged from Arkkitehdit NRT’s recent renovation of Helsinki’s beloved Finlandia Hall.
Photo by Justus Hirvi
Happiness by design
This year’s main exhibition, Designing Happiness, unpacked the role of architecture and design in individual and collective wellbeing through an encyclopaedic arrangement of objects.
“Much has been said about the happiness of Nordic countries, but can happiness actually be designed?” asked curator Anniina Koivu, whose year-long research spanned diverse contemporary and historical products and services in the fields of health, town planning, fashion and more.
The objects on display ranged from a “welcoming” Alvar Aalto-designed door handle that “every Finn has touched somewhere” to a waterproof children’s suit by sportswear brand Rukka and a group of 1963 Ball Chairs by Eero Aarnio arranged to allow visitors to listen to music together. At the end of the show, visitors were offered a sweet from a pick-n-mix bowl if they needed a “quick fix” of happiness.
Helsinki Design Week founder Kari Korkman emphasised how architects and designers strive to better our lives on the opening night of the festival, asking his audience to consider the question: “Have you ever met a pessimistic designer?”
Photo courtesy of Habitare
Emphasis on craft
This year’s Helsinki Design Week saw the return of the event’s Open Studios series, where established and emerging designers have the opportunity to open up their workshops and reveal the craft required to bring their designs to life. Among the participants was Minestrone Workshop, a one-year-old “contemporary wood workshop” whose members aim to continue the Finnish tradition of working with timber from a fresh perspective.
Craft took centre stage at the Habitare Protos exhibition of emerging designers, where Kirsikka Heiskari showed a wobbly modular glass chandelier informed by melting candle wax. Close by, Habitare Talents participant Lennart Engels presented a geopolymer material he developed using discarded sauna stones from Helsinki’s many public sweat rooms.
Engels’s project wasn’t the only reference to the Finnish wellness habit. The designer collaborated with his three fellow Habitare Talents exhibitors to create a playfully constructed sauna heater, with individual components handmade by each member of the group.
Photo courtesy of Artek and Marimekko
Respect for heritage
Finland is known for its many heritage brands, including glassware company Iittala and furnituremaker Artek, which this year celebrated its 90th anniversary. In celebration, the company collaborated with local textile brand Marimekko to design the duo’s first co-created furniture collection.
The collection includes versions of the Aalto-designed Stool 60, Bench 153B and Table 90D, updated with inlays of wood, metal, glass and stone in recognisable Marimekko motifs. Each piece was created to be purposefully understated, marrying the brands’ different visual languages.
“We’re very proud of our joint baby,” joked Artek managing director Marianne Goebl. “It’s a dialogue between two friends.”
At Studio Kukkapuro, the experimental home and studio of the late designer and artist couple Yrjö and Irmeli Kukkapuro, the pair’s daughter and granddaughter unveiled the YK92 armchair, “the last chair” conceived by Yrjö Kukkapuro before his death in February.
Designed to provide a firm grip for weaker legs, the chair was on display at Habitare. It was brought into production by manufacturer Alestek using designs left unfinished on the desk of Yrjö Kukkapuro, who continued to dream up new ideas until the day he died, according to his daughter Isa Kukkapuro-Enbom.
“He was still designing in his mind,” she explained. “He was still thinking about this idea of making the most minimalistic chair ever made. And that chair, he took with him to the stars.”
The top photo is by Kalle Kouhia.
Helsinki Design Week 2025 took place from 5 to 14 September 2025 at various locations across Helsinki, Finland. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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