The history of molded plywood dates back to ancient Egypt around 3500 BCE. To address the scarcity of high-quality wood, craftsmmen began creating plywood products using thin sheets of timber. This innovative technique has been refined over the centuries, and since the early 20th – when it was embraced by many architects and designers – its use in furniture has expanded significantly. Pursuing more beautiful forms from an ergonomic and design perspective, these pioneers conducted extensive research to enhance its applications. Molded plywood is considered to be a gift born from the collective wisdom and skills of many people.

Molded plywood is essentially layered plywood that has been bent into shape. Layered plywood consists of thinly sliced sheets of wood called venees, which are stacked together. Using this technique, bold and graceful curves can be created, allowing for various expressive designs. It also enable the appreciation of the natural wood characterists, like unique grain pattersn, expecially in bent wood pieces. This is a technique makes it possible to craft lightweight and durable wooden products with elegant curves that are challending to achieve with solid wood.

Fuji Furniture’s journey with molded plywood began in 1977. Inspired by Scandinavian molded plywood products, we embarked on developing our own techniques. Even after more that 20 years, our molded plywood technology continues to evolve. Here, we reflect on the histroy of Fuji Furniture’s molded plywood, along with the technologies used in the products we’ve developed so far.

Although we began working with the new technology of molded plywood, the journey was a continuous process of trial and error due to the delicate precision required in its processing. Every factor—from selecting veneers and coatings to adjusting the applied pressure and heat, and fine-tuning according to changes in humidity and ambient temperature—affected the final result, leading us to repeatedly create prototypes.

About a year after we began our efforts, in 1978, we released Fuji Furniture’s first molded plywood product, Rosetta. The frame, which integrated the seat frame with the front legs and the back frame with the rear legs, was unusual in the furniture industry at the time from the standpoint of durability.

Rosetta quickly became a popular product after its release, and in the following year, 1979, we released Memory, which became the prototype for today’s Agio. Within a few years of their release, both Rosetta and Memory recorded sales that rivaled the sofa sets, which were Fuji Furniture’s main products at the time.

After that, we developed many products using molded frames, expanding the breadth of our product lineup.

During the peak of Japan’s economic bubble, the total coordination of living and dining spaces became mainstream. Molded plywood products continued to evolve, leading to the release of numerous living and dining items. A new product series called Stream, featuring molded plywood designs, was established. Subsequently, housing environments shifted to an LD (Living-Dining) style, integrating living and dining spaces. Stylish products became favored, further advancing the development of dining chairs using molded frames. As a result, Fuji Furniture came to be known as synonymous with molded plywood.

At the beginning of the 2000s, following the collapse of the bubble economy and amid rising demand for low-priced imported furniture, consumer preferences becam polarized into low-priced and high-priced segments. At Fuji Furniture, to differentiate ourselves from low-priced imported furniture, we were compelled to evolve by elevating the techniques we had cultivated up to that point.

During this period of transition, our first product using molded plywood that incorporated three-dimensional curved surfaces, Tapio, was born. For Fuji Furniture at that time, it became a revolutionary product. Without editing software capable of handling 3D drawings, creating the envisioned curved surfaces required enormous eddot. We had to dissect the molded plywpood into cross-sections at 2mm intervals to create molding press jigs, among other labor-intensive tasks. Moreover, adjustments to the applied pressure and heat demanded us to apply our existing know-how in many ways, making the path to completion anything but easy. However, the charm of Tapio, completed with its beautifully smooth curved surfaces, remains undiminished event today.

Carbon is an element found in a wide range of substnaces, from diamonds to graphite. When this carbon is formed into fibres, it becomes carbon fiber.Carbon fiber is lightweight and has high strencgth; in particular, its tensile strength in the fiber direction is up to ten times that of steel. CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics), which is carbon fiber solidified with resin, began market development in the 1980s, and in recent years, demand has rapidly increased in areas such as sports equipment, aerospace, and automotive industries.

In 2014, Fuji Furniture also began researching whether such materials could be utilized in furniture. The example we chose was Agio, which can be considered the origin of Fuji Furniture’s molded plywood. Generally, it is believed that combining wood with dissimilar materials to create composites disrupts the balance of strength and results in loss of stability. Therefore, we began the research somewhat skeptically, but as we progressed, we discovered that combining CFRP with molded plywood produced properties that complement each other’s weaknesses.

Not only did it become possible to suppress the wood’s characteristics of deformation and warping due to aging, maintaining shape stability, but the tensile strength, which is the strength of carbon fiber, suppressed material breakage in the bent parts of molded plywood. This allowed us to maintain the same strength as conventional products even when reducing the thickness of the molded plywood by about 30–40%. As a byproduct of making it thinner, it also provided an unprecedented springiness. While there are still challenges, such as increased costs and more complex processes, there are high expectations for the expansion of designs using molded plywood in the future.

Fuji Furniture’s molded plywood uses thermosetting resin and adopts a manufacturing method that applies pressure by sandwiching the material between large curved surfaces. However, by utilizing thermoplastic film encountered at an overseas trade fair in 2015, it became possible to use wooden molds with various curved surfaces, allowing us to shape molded plywood in ways that were not possible before.

Thermosetting resin is liquid, and moreover, it requires stainless steel or copper plates that serve as electrodes for curing. Therefore, it was necessary to apply pressure to the veneers constituting the molded plywood on a single continuous surface. However, since thermoplastic film is, as its name suggests, a thin film, it can be processed prior to applying pressure. Additionally, because the film is melted in a hot press before pressing, electrodes are not needed during the pressing process. As a result, it became possible to create products with multiple curved surfaces.

While there are challenges—such as how the material moves and post-molding processing methods due to applying pressure simultaneously on multiple curved surfaces—the ability to mold with large curvatures enables us to tackle shapes that were difficult to realize until now.

In recent years, the development of products that combine solid wood carving and molded plywood has been progressing. From a production standpoint, solid wood carving and molded plywood have different manufacturing processes and lead times, so they were rarely combined as main components of a product. However, with the introduction of a high-performance CNC machining center in 2015, we established a system capable of accurately mass-producing solid wood, eliminating the difference in lead times, and in 2018, the Nagi dining chair was born. Not only did we have the new equipment, but we also had already built up know-how over more than 40 years in molded plywood technology to stabilize warping and twisting, which was a major factor in its creation. The combination of a solid wood back frame with beautiful wood grain and a seat frame characterized by its rounded silhouette has been gaining popularity since its launch and is becoming the new face of Fuji Furniture.

Carbon neutrality means maintaining a constant total amount of carbon emitted and carbon absorbed. In Japan, various initiatives are being promoted based on the ‘2050 Carbon Neutral Declaration’ announced in 2020. Reforestation is known as a familiar initiative. Plants are recognized as good for the environment because of the mechanism of photosynthesis, where they absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Therefore, it tends to be thought that the more reforestation progresses, the more carbon dioxide on Earth decreases while oxygen increases, leading to environmental improvement. However, when considered at the atomic level, we find that our understanding of the relationship between reforestation and environmental issues is mistaken.

Let’s unravel the reasons why reforestation is encouraged, even though increasing reforestation does not directly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide on Earth.

It is believed that the total amount of atoms composing substances like oxygen and carbon dioxide (oxygen atoms and carbon atoms) remains constant on Earth. Therefore, a state where oxygen becomes saturated and carbon dioxide drastically decreases cannot occur.

Through photosynthesis, plants decompose water (H₂O) absorbed from their roots and leaves and carbon dioxide (CO₂) absorbed from the air, generating carbohydrates like starch necessary for growth. Since oxygen is unnecessary in this production, it is released into the atmosphere. At first glance, it may seem that the carbon and hydrogen used in the plant’s growth have disappeared, but in reality, it is correct to consider that they have been accumulated within the plant. Therefore, if plants are burned, the accumulated carbon becomes carbon dioxide and is released back into the atmosphere. In other words, atoms like oxygen and carbon are cycling.

For reforestation to have a positive impact on the environment, it is essential that it is conducted in a cycle where the circulation of atoms can occur appropriately.

To balance the circulation of atoms in the atmosphere, the timing and number of trees planted are, of course, important, but equally important is properly managing, harvesting, and utilizing grown trees. So, when is the appropriate timing for harvesting?

Taking broadleaf trees, which are widely used in furniture, as an example, it takes about 40 to 50 years from planting saplings until they can be used as timber. Once a tree reaches its peak growth, it no longer requires as much carbon, which was essential for its growth, so the speed of carbon accumulation decreases. This turning point is considered the optimal timing for harvesting.

Harvested timber is transformed into many familiar items, not only furniture but also house pillars and more. By promoting harvesting and utilization that match the growth speed of trees, we can effectively sequester carbon.

The yield of veneers used in molded plywood is as high as 60% of the log, making it known as an eco-friendly material. Furthermore, molded plywood can be expected to be used stably and for a long time because it reduces the defects of wood.