The Renki Collection | 2021

Designers: Tapio Anttila, Lahti, Finland
Manufacturer: Tapio Anttila Collection Ltd., Lahti, Finland

Tapio Anttila Collection is a furniture collection bearing the name of its designer. Its mission is to make practical, insightful, and well-designed furniture.

The main raw material is wood, which is a renewable natural material and acts as a carbon store. Carbon is stored in trees in the forest but remains stored in wooden furniture throughout its life cycle. That is why one of the important goals is to make these pieces of furniture as long-lasting as possible.

RENKI accessories concept: Responsibility is the basis of everything, and it also guides the firm’s design. They are constantly learning to produce furniture more and more ecologically. That’s why their production processes are monitored trying to find new ways to reduce the carbon footprint of furniture. The RENKI concept is the result of one such study.

One important part of this collection is the sofa beds. The designers have succeeded in developing a unique collection of them, which have been awarded several design awards. Sofas have been very successful commercially and have a large production volume. All the sofas are united by the fact that they have a wooden frame and are 2 meters long, which becomes their bed feature.

At the sawmill, the standard length of the tree trunks is 3 meters, leaving a waste of about 0.8 meters of pieces in the manufacture of sofas. The RENKI series was developed, utilizing waste pieces generated in the manufacture of sofas. In this way, they optimize the use of material that reduces the carbon footprint of end products.

After calculating and observing the carbon footprint of all products, it is compensated by planting new trees. A factor is used to calculate the sofas, which considers the percentage of wood material wasted. The carbon footprint of the material of the RENKI concept products is thus almost zero, as it has already been considered in “mother” products i.e., sofas.

The RENKI concept includes small and multi-purpose shelves, coat rack, shoe rack, and mirror. The products utilize the same parts, for example, the same board size is repeated on the shelf, coat rack, and shoe rack. This reduces manufacturing emissions.

The RENKI concept will be expanded and will be increased next with clothes hook, new clothes rack, and benches and stools. All products in the concept are designed to go as flat as possible packing, which reduces transport emissions.