Grove Park - O'Sullivan Skofoglou Architects - Photography - Stale Eriksen
Plywood has been a favourite design material of architects since the beginning of the modern movement in the 1920s and continues to feature prominently in many architect designed homes built today.
Plywood is a manufactured panel product made from layers of thin wood veneers that have been glued together under high heat and pressure. Its popularity endures because it is extremely strong, attractive and highly sustainable.
In the projects selected below, plywood has been positioned front and centre to show how it can create warm and inviting interior spaces.
Find out more about plywood as an interior finish.
Completed in 2020, Two and a Half Storey House is an imaginative solution to extend a simple terraced house on a central London housing estate. Restricted by planning constraints which ruled out a standard single-storey loft extension, the architects reworked the existing section of the house and created a half-storey addition to accommodate an extra bedroom.
As the internal spaces are quite small, plywood has been used extensively to unify the design and make the spaces feel larger than they are. Birch plywood walls, doors, built-in storage and furniture have been carefully detailed to create a warm, family-friendly interior.
Two and a Half Storey House - Bradley Van Der Straeten - Photography - French and Tye
At Grove Park, O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects have deployed white ash veneered plywood to create a serene, open-plan interior within a speculatively built 1980s detached house in London.
Ash veneered plywood panels sit between exposed timber beams in the ceiling and, together with a polished concrete floor, unify the open-plan spaces. There are also ash veneered plywood wall panels, window reveals, built-in seating and plywood kitchen door fronts, and solid ash windows and doors. White painted plaster walls and granite worktops complete the interior design.
Grove Park - O'Sullivan Skofoglou Architects - Photography - Stale Eriksen
Occupying a footprint of only 35 square metres, the RIBA award-winning Pocket House incorporates a variety of types of plywood and timber elements to enhance the sense of space and natural light.
Exposed Douglas fir joists supporting the ground and first-floor ceilings are inset with 18mm South American pine plywood to form exposed soffits. Internal walls and storage units are lined with exposed 12mm spruce veneered plywood panels.
The kitchen and other built-in joinery items are formed in Douglas fir veneered plywood, while the flooring and window frames are also made from solid Douglas fir.
A solid yellow pine staircase running along a wall of London Stock brickwork is completed by flat panel balustrades constructed in two layers of 18mm South American pine plywood sheets bonded together with adhesive. The internal timber surfaces are finished with Osmo hard wax oil.
Pocket House - Tikari Works - Photography by Edmund Sumner
The Brexit Bunker is a garden room in northwest London designed by Ride Design Studio to function as a home studio and sanctuary from the outside world.
Smooth birch plywood panels line the walls and pyramid-shaped ceiling, which contrast with the rough weathered steel cladding used on the exterior.
The plywood unifies the interior space and creates a sense of warmth and spaciousness. A small rooflight at the apex of the roof draws natural light into the space and highlights the natural characteristics of the birch surfaces.
Birch plywood is also used in the construction of the stepped storage unit and deep set window reveals. Both offer places to sit and connect with the outside.
Brexit Bunker - Rise Design Studio - Photography by Edmund Sumner
A highly intricate CNC-constructed Latvian birch plywood staircase forms the central design feature in this turn of the twentieth century house refurbishment by Tsuruta Architects.
Perforated treads, risers, stringers and balustrades allow light and air to circulate through to the floors below. Email conversations between client and architect are engraved on the stringers and handrails to document how the design came into being.
CNC cut birch plywood was also used to construct bespoke storage units in many of the rooms. The kitchen units, dining table and chairs are constructed from CNC cut white high pressure laminated birch plywood.
This project showcases the potential of digital production methods and how bespoke parts can be incorporated into a build at a lower cost.
Marie's Wardrobe - Tsuruta Architects - Photography by Tim Crocker
About the author: Aron Coates is an architect with over two decades of experience, encompassing projects ranging from the restoration of historic buildings to the design of contemporary homes.
The information provided in this article is intended for general guidance and educational purposes only. At Designs in Detail, we advise you appoint a skilled residential architect to provide specific expert advice for your project.
