Long considered a sub-material that should always be covered with something else, plywood has come into its own as a visually striking surface option for interior applications. An affordable alternative to solid wood, plywood is easy to shape, readily available and comes in textures ranging from the smoothest birch panels to mottled pressboard, and it’s getting a starring role in everything from micro apartments to cafes and modern offices.

Artist’s Studio in Tel Aviv

Thin sheets of beautiful birch plywood make up a clever floor-to-ceiling arrangement of drawers, doors, cupboards and niches in this multifunctional artist studio by Ranaan Stern. The drawers are custom-sized to fit a collection of two-dimensional art pieces. The sliding door hides a folding bed, and features peg holes for displaying smaller works of art and hanging tools.

All-Plywood Tiny Student Apartment

Created in response to a need for affordable student housing, this environmentally friendly ‘smart student unit’ is made from cross-laminated plywood and packs a surprising amount of comfort and function into under 100 square feet, including a kitchen, fold-down table, hammock, stairs leading to a sleeping loft, and even a private bathroom.

Modern Cabin Interior

A striking, matte-black geometric cabin in the woods of Poland by Tomek Michalski looks dark and monolithic from the outside, but bright and cheerful inside. The designer used plywood for nearly all interior surfaces and built-ins, including the couch and bed platform.

Transformer Apartment

This faceted geometric wall pushes out into the space within a 645-square-foot apartment by Vlad Mishin. Behind those plywood panels are books, a television, a kitchen and doors to the bathroom and bedroom.

Wall-to-Wall Shelving at Triangle House

Raw plywood pressboard covers nearly all of the interior surfaces in Norway’s ‘Triangle House,’ from the stair treads to entire walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves.

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Power Of Plywood 15 Beautiful Affordable Interior Applications

Customized to each particular interior, these wooden built-ins add lofted bedrooms, closet space, bookshelves, reading nooks, hidden laundry rooms and elevated workspaces in incredibly compact packages. Often performing like massively oversized furniture, custom timber creations can help make tiny apartments livable, taking full advantage of vertical space.

Bookcase Loft

A loft living room gets the addition of a library-style bookcase, closet, lofted wardrobe space, stairs and a small bedroom. Made of heartwood pine, the box insert measuring 16x17x10 takes full advantage of the ceiling height in the space.

Cabin in a Brooklyn Loft

A loft in Brooklyn gets a fun and functional new bedroom space reminiscent of a rustic cabin in the woods, creating a private room that also adds architectural interest to the space.

Garage to Studio Transformation

A garage in Moscow is now a studio space for an architecture student thanks to the addition of a bunch of built-in wooden elements, including a grid shelving system, work desk, sofa and suspended loft bed.

Sculptural Laser-Cut Shelving

Far more visually interesting than the average bookcase, this laser-cut built-in wall of shelves continues onto the ceiling in a single flowing form to become a sculptural focal point.

Multi-Level Artist Retreat

This artist-in-residence project at department store de Bijenkorf in Amsterdam fills the uniquely tall space of a historic tower with a beautiful series of stacked rooms decked out with cabinets, tables and bed platforms.

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Timber Transformations 13 Space Expanding Wood Interior Inserts

Plywood and other manufactured wood building materials are like the undergarments of architecture – foundational elements that are then covered with a more stylish, finished layer.  But their low cost, strong grain, flexibility and the sheer shock of seeing them prominently featured in modern design has given them a more visible role. From kitchen islands finished in humble waferboard to entire houses clad in marine plywood, manufactured wood gives us a glimpse of what it can do in these 13 projects.

Multi-Level Plywood Maze in Fukawa, Japan

(images via: dezeen)

Plywood pops up in this home in Fukawa, Japan in the most unexpected way – as the main material used to create an interior stairway that branches off into various rooms and platforms. Created by Japanese architecture firm Suppose Design Office, the unusual structure is intended to break up a high-ceilinged space, making it appear larger than it actually is.

Colorful MDF Cladding Contrasts with Cedar

(images via: archdaily)

MDF in the ever-changing hues of surrounding deciduous trees makes a stunning contrast with silvery weathered cedar in this Green Lake, Wisconsin house by Johnsen Schmaling Architects. In pursuit of a modern look that blends in with the natural surroundings, the architects chose a low profile and interspersed the colorful MDF, cedar and glass for an effect that mimics the view one gets between trees in a forest.

XS House Finished in Marine Plywood, Massachusetts

(images via: archdaily)

Strong, waterproof marine-grade plywood makes a warm, modern sheath for the XS House in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Architects UNI/Chaewon Kim + Beat Schenk stacked three 16-by-22-foot boxes vertically to get as much use out of a small divided lot as possible. Inside, the plywood theme is continued on the staircase on the first floor, and serves as the main wall covering throughout the second floor.

Dbd Studio’s Digitally Fabricated MDF Bookshelf

(images via: design milk)

Not many materials bend and flow quite so effortlessly in an application like this fluid free-form bookcase by dbd Studio, which acts as both functional storage and a sculptural art piece in a Washington, D.C. apartment. MDF is an ideal material for digitally fabricated furniture, which is designed and cut using computer programs.

Amazing Birch Plywood Ceiling at Banq Restaurant, Boston

(images via: freshome)

Birch plywood was used to completely transform an abandoned space – the former Penny Savings Bank in Boston – into an unforgettable dining space. The design is like an enormous wave undulating from one side of the room to the other, dripping down in columns to the floor. The resulting wood ‘canopy’ hides unsightly elements like mechanical equipment, vents and plumbing.

Veneered Plywood at Nishimura Restaurant, Los Angeles

(images via: interiordesign.net)

It took 1,000 sheets of plywood to create the 4-foot-thick, 30-foot-long wall that divides the sushi bar from the dining area in Los Angeles’ Nishimura Restaurant. The sheets had to be laminated in place before it was sanded smooth and waxed, and what results is a warm wall that resembles bamboo in its variation of lights and darks. Engineered oak veneers were also used for the booths in the main dining room.

MDF Honeycomb Wall, Germany

(images via: dezeen)

Architecture students at the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design at the University of Stuttgart in Germany created this incredible honeycomb-inspired MDF wall, which acts as a display stand for art exhibitions. Each honeycomb ‘cell’ is uniquely angled to provide a defined focal point, steering the gaze of viewers onto specific objects behind the wall. “Each element of the structure is unique, generated by algorithms based on the location of the wall and the locations of the items exhibited. Once generated, the element shapes were transferred directly to a CNC mill for fabrication,” the students explain.

Plywood Parisian Loft

(images via: loft life)

‘Chic’, ‘Parisian’, ‘Loft’ and ‘Plywood’ – which one of these words doesn’t belong? It’s one of the last materials you’d expect to take center stage in a fashionable European apartment, but in this otherwise all-white loft, the grain of plywood panels provides a natural touch of pattern.

Prominent Waferboard at Cubby House

(images via: archdaily)

Made from flakes of wood glued together into a flat planel, waferboard is both strong and cheap, but it’s not pretty – or at least, it’s not often used in ways that cause us to consider its visual value. But it’s certainly not hiding behind paint and drywall in this application, as the exterior surface for kitchen cabinets and an island. For ‘Cubby House’, a renovation of an apartment in Melbourne, Australia, architecture firm Edwards Moore contrasted the rough, tactile surface of waferboard with the smooth uniformity of the walls and floors surrounding it.

Chalet Lanel Plywood Home, France

(images via: plastolux)

Pale plywood and textural exposed concrete make a strong statement at ‘Chalet Lanel’, a home in France. In fact, plywood covers nearly every surface – walls, ceiling, built-in niches – even the bed platform.

Faceted Plywood Cafe Bar, Poland

(images via: dezeen)

A large faceted plywood bar acts as the centerpiece at MS cafe, located on the ground floor of the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, Poland. Design studio Wunderteam wanted to reflect the museum’s avant-garde collection throughout the space, and the bar – made of wooden triangular planes interspersed with back-lit plexiglass panels – is definitely cutting-edge.

Black Painted Plywood Interior, Tokyo

(images via: archdaily)

Most of the architectural and interior designs that have self-consciously included exposed plywood have left it bare, but what kind of impact does it make when painted? Architecture firm GENETO paints it black in this Tokyo home, aiming for bold built-ins that can be produced economically. Up close, the wood grain can still be seen, preventing the black from overpowering the space.

Stuttgart Plywood Research Pavilion, Germany

(images via: detail.de)

The architectural students at the University of Stuttgart prove that manufactured wood surfaces are good for larger applications as well with this incredible plywood pavilion, located on the university campus. ““The starting point of our deliberations was one of the properties of plywood, the potential of which has not been exploited for structural purposes up until now,” said student Manuel Vollrath. “What I mean by that is its elasticity, resulting from the inherent stresses in the material.” The whole complex process of creating such a structure is laid out at detail.de.