Fiskars Village awarded January 23 2016

Congratulations to the people of Fiskars Village for being awarded the Finnish Travel Destination of 2015 by the Finnish Guild of Travel Journalists!

The working artisan village was chosen by being one of the most diverse and interesting cultural destinations of southern Finland. Fiskars Village is renowned for its ironworks and industrial history spanning to 1649, and more recent profile as the centre of Finnish art and design with over one hundred creative professionals calling Fiskars home. The inclusion of a slow food festival, local beer and cheese production, performance art, music and many other cultural happenings all year round have made it a popular travel destination.  And all of this wrapped up in the beautiful, tranquil surrounds of pristine forests and lakes...

A must visit! Enquire about our custom itinerary travel service and our Designer-Maker Wood Experience Tour for 2016.

Fiskars Village, beautiful all year round...

Exhibitions and happenings...

We Love Woods 2016

Master blacksmith's Minun Kalevalani exhibition 2016

Slow Food 2016

Valo Light exhibition 2016

Kyllikki Salmenhaara anniversary exhibition 2016

Cultura Mobila show 2016

Enrolments open for summer 2016 courses January 18 2016

We have opened enrolments for the 2016 summer season. Courses include Introductory Furniture Restoration, Intermediate Upholstery, and extended 10 weeks Chair Making Course and Woodworker's Workbench Making Courses.

For more information visit the School of Furniture.

Fiskars 2015 August 11 2015

Fiskars Village is home and workplace to many artists, craftspeople and designers. The summer months are busy with many exhibitions and events featuring the work of the locals that attract visitors from around Finland and further abroad. This year's exhibition WE LOVE WOODS features local craftspeople and designers collaborating with timber to make beautiful furniture and objects. Fiskars also hosts other interesting happenings such as the recent British car gathering where about 300 cars made their pitstop at Fiskars for the day, with live music, markets and food bringing the locals together to enjoy the beautiful summer day. 

Enrolments open for spring 2015 furniture restoration and upholstery courses July 05 2015

We have opened enrolments for our spring 2015 season of furniture restoration and upholstery courses. With the first commencing early October, these courses run over four consecutive Saturdays. For more information visit our School of Furniture webpage. 

Suitable for beginner to intermediate level, these hands-on courses will teach you how to strip, repair, finish and upholster a small piece of furniture. Courses are run by Lasse Kinnunen and Helena Kinnunen.

Fiskars summer store May 02 2015

Helena and Lasse will be opening our Fiskars summer store early May. Fiskars is a beautiful artisan village in southern Finland, a vibrant hub of creativity with many craftspeople, designers and artists. The summer store at the 'Toriliiteri' will include some pieces from our classic deka collection as well as a few newly launched pieces, including Lasse's new cabinet Oksa.

New Zamu chair and Lasse's Oksa cabinet.

Burst Open Exhibition October 13 2014

Nora was invited as one of six international designers to explore the emerging global open source design movement in the Burst Open project and exhibition. Curated by John de Manincor and Christian Duell, this "design model experiment" is to test, document and share a new way of creating and doing business. Each designer was asked to select an existing open source design and modify it in some way to suit the local context. In this experiment the success of the outcome is less important than what is learnt from the process of the designer.

Nora used this project to explore the role of local manufacturing in making open source furniture. She chose a table design available on open source platform opendesk.cc and modified it with local manufacturing and added functionality in mind. Follow her design process from concept to prototype on the Burst Open blog.

Exhibition:
4 October - 24 December 2014
Official opening with Arts Minister Ian Walker 6pm, 14 October 2014
Gallery Artisan
381 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.

Designers participating:
Andrew D'Occhio
Edrie Ortega
Gardar Eyjolfsson
Inside Open Source UQ
Virginia San Fratello
Nora Kinnunen

Deka Studio Finland pop-up shop now open! June 13 2014

We are now open in Finland with our Deka Studio summer pop-up shop in the gorgeous Fiskars Village!

From June - August 2014 we will be there selling our furniture and accessories. Visit us at:
Deka Studio
Peltorivi 6, 10470 Fiskars
t +358 (0)465 241 090  e  helena@dekadesign.com.au 

Deka Studio in Finland! April 25 2014

Deka Design will be opening a pop-up shop in Finland, in the gorgeous artisan village of Fiskars. The village, 80km west of Helsinki, is home to over 100 craftspeople, designers and artists. During summer it is a hub of activity with numerous exhibitions, events, galleries and shops. Our pop-up shop is at the 'Toriliiteri' next to the market square, from June to August 2014, open every day 11am - 5pm. Please visit us to see our collection of hand crafted furniture, accessories and homewares.

January restoration and upholstery course photos February 28 2014

The students of the January course completed their projects beautifully! Each project needed a full strip down and structural repair. Old webbings and waddings were replaced, surface finishes were applied, fabrics were selected, new cushions made and upholstery completed.  Here are a few before and after photos.

 
Children's chair before and after

 
Lounge chair before and after

 
Lounge chair before and after

New Woodnotes 2014 rug collection February 02 2014

The linen-wool hand tufted rug 'Tundra' and the 'Midsummer' paper yarn rug are new for the Woodnotes 2014 collection.

The Midsummer rug was awarded the Interior Innovation Award at the IMM Cologne Furniture Fair in January. This painterly striped rug is suitable for residential and contract interiors. The Tundra rug is a beautiful combination of linen and wool hand-tufted loops.

 
Midsummer blue-black

Midsummer graphite - stone

 
Midsummer colours

Tundra stone-white

Tundra colours.

Please enquire for pricing.

Summer/autumn season furniture restoration and upholstery courses January 21 2014

Deka Design's School of Furniture has now scheduled all the restoration and upholstery courses for this summer/autumn season, January - April.

In addition to the first course running Saturdays from 25th January, we now have courses running on either Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays during February, March and April. These have been designed to give students access at times that suit them better during the week. The student may chose between 10 x 3-hour sessions or 6 x 3-hour sessions depending on the scale of their project. For more information visit our courses page.

The School of Furniture will take a break from courses during May - August 2014 so the next restoration and upholstery courses for 2014 will run in the spring season beginning September.

Restoration and upholstery course starting January 25th January 13 2014

The next furniture restoration and upholstery course will commence January 25th 2014. It will run over five consecutive Saturdays.

For more information click here or to enrol email info@dekadesign.com.au.

Design and Craft Tour of Finland December 13 2013

Deka Design Traveller is organising a Design and Craft Tour of Helsinki and Southern Finland in July-August 2014.

Join this nine-day tour to experience inspiring design, craft and architecture destinations. See woodworkers in their workshop, meet the artists of Fiskars Village and visit local exhibitions. And as the long summer days linger, enjoy local Finnish food and a lakeside sauna to relax.

We are taking expressions of interest. For more information please contact Nora at info@dekadesign.com.au .

Restoration course - fruits of labour November 12 2013

A few images from our restoration courses showing the hard work of our participants.

Mid-century chairs are proving popular restoration projects as many of them are still in good structural condition, and they provide a good working platform to learn the basics of timber and upholstery restoration.

Hightide Exhibition at Artisan October 30 2013

Showing now is the Hightide exhibition at Artisan! Featuring Deka Design's work of Lasse Kinnunen and Helena Kinnunen alongside many other esteemed Queensland designers, each showing their designs from the past decade.
Artisan: 381 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley.
On until February 2014.

More information about the exhibition is here.

Helena and Lasse at the opening of Hightide at Artisan, with featured i...stool, Kantti table and Kantti chair.

Spring Clean Garage Sale - bargains on excess stock! October 17 2013

RECYCLE AND RE-USE!

On Saturday 26th October we'll be participating in the Garage Sale Trail. 
We'll be open 7am - 2pm with lots of bargains on excess stock of cushions, cushion covers, tablecloths, wallart, castors, bun feet, glass shelves, mannequins, posters. We have a couple ex-display stock coffee tables and a bookcase reduced. And delve into Helena's stash of crafty materials such as fabrics, leathers and upholstery trim. She has too accumulated too much and they need to go! Also for sale are things from home such as children's toys, boy's clothes, books, a boy's bike and xmas decorations.

Visit our garage sale page.

And come along to see how we run our furniture restoration and upholstery courses!

Kantti chair in good company September 10 2013

As our Kantti chair is now also manufactured in Finland by Petri Koivusipila, it's popping up in the local media. Here in the Habitare interiors fair issue of Kotiliesi magazine, the Kantti sits proudly next to Finnish design including Woodnotes' Siro chair, Petri Koivusipila's dining table, Katriina Nuutinen's pendant light and Marimekko fabric.

Another restoration and upholstery course September 04 2013

Due to popular demand we have opened enrolments for a second furniture restoration and upholstery course to run in October 2013. Visit here for more information.

Buy Locally Saturday July 24 2013

We are open Saturday 27th July 2013 10am - 3pm for Buy Locally Saturday!
This day is part of Queensland Small Business Week and encourages locals to support their local businesses by shopping with them. We will have our furniture, cushions, wall art and accessories on sale! Also, visit us for more information about our upcoming furniture restoration and upholstery course and others that we are planning.

For more information about  Buy Locally Saturday go to the Business Queensland facebook page.

Kantti chair available in Europe July 23 2013

Our Kantti chair is now available in Europe! It is manufactured in Finland by our friends at Koivusipila for the Finnish and European market. The chair will sit alongside other beautifully crafted timber furniture by designers such as Mikko Merz, Petri Koivusipila and Veera Sievanen all manufactured by this artisan furniture maker.  Petri Koivusipila's company is in the picturesque Fiskars Village in Southern Finland, home to over 100 working artists, craftspeople and designers across many disciplines.
The Kantti chair will be available in a selection of sustainably sourced Finnish and European timbers including oak, ash and birch.

Fiskars Village Update July 18 2013

Images from Lasse and Helena of the local scenery of Fiskars, Finland.

Fiskars Village is a small artisan village 80km outside of Helsinki, Finland. It is home to over 100 artists, designers and craftspeople, and during the summer months it attracts visitors from around the world interested in their work and way of life. Lasse is spending time in Fiskars collaborating with Petri Koivusipila at his furniture studio and workshop Koivusipila.

Hightide Book June 23 2013

The work of Deka Design is included in Hightide - a new book by Jason Bird featuring a decade of Queensland design. Lasse's classic Antero chair, Helena's cheeky i...stool and our newest timber furniture collection Kantti are featured alongside other local designers such as Christina Waterson, Kent Gration and KT Doyle. Hightide is available to purchase through the website.

(Image courtesy Hightide)

Furniture restoration and upholstery course June 18 2013

Enrolments are now open for our Furniture Restoration and Upholstery Course, to be held by master craftsman Lasse Kinnunen in September 2013. This short course will run at our Wynnum workshop over three consecutive Saturdays (9am - 4pm) starting on 21st September. It is perfect for participants who would like to restore a timber dining table, re-web and re-upholster a chair or repair a damaged treasured antique or heirloom!

More information here or email us info@dekadesign.com.au for a brochure and an enrolment form.

QUT Furniture Course exhibition April 22 2013

An exhibition of works by the designers who participated in the QUT furniture short course is on display 18th - 22 April 2013 at the QUT Garden's Theatre foyer.

Congratulations to all the participants - Leona Tejcek, Celine Caron, Jill Franz, Phil Bugden and Jennifer Hudson - for the beautiful furniture pieces created during this course.

The process of designing and making at the QUT studio and workshop...

A great collaboration with Paul Morris, Lasse Kinnunen and QUT's Michael Molloy, Philip Mergard and Simon Belton. For more information about future professional development courses in furniture design and making, please visit the QUT website.