By Richard
The Wood Brutalist | Creative Director, The Snug Company
There is something we need to talk about in furniture.
Our obsession with solid wood.
Somewhere along the way, we began treating solid timber as the ultimate proof of authenticity. If a piece is made from a thick slab of timber, it is considered honest, valuable and worthy of admiration. If it is made from veneer, plywood, MDF or another engineered panel, there is often an assumption that something has been compromised.
I don’t agree.
And I’m The Wood Brutalist.
I love timber.
There is no argument there.
The grain. The imperfections. The density. The way light moves across a surface. The subtle differences between one board and another. These are some of the reasons I became fascinated by wood in the first place.
But loving a material does not mean refusing to understand it.
And wood, perhaps more than almost any other furniture material, demands that we understand it.
Wood Is Beautiful. Wood Is Also Unpredictable.
Timber came from something that was once alive.
It responds to its environment.
It moves. It expands. It contracts. It takes in and releases moisture. Its behavior changes with climate, construction, orientation, species and how it has been prepared.
In a place like Lagos, where heat and humidity are not occasional conditions but part of everyday life, this matters.
A designer who understands wood cannot simply fall in love with the appearance of a beautiful board.
They must understand what that board wants to do.
Where will it move?
How will it behave over time?
Where should it be allowed to move?
Where should it be restrained?
When should it be used?
And when should another material do the job instead?
That is where I think the conversation around engineered panels becomes much more interesting.
Engineered Does Not Mean Fake
The word engineered sometimes carries an unfortunate implication.
As though an engineered board is somehow an imitation of the “real thing.”
I see it differently.
An engineered panel is not wood pretending to be something else.
It is a material that has been deliberately designed to behave in a particular way.
Depending on the panel and application, engineering can give us dimensional consistency, stability, repeatability and precision that can be difficult to achieve with solid timber alone.
It can allow us to create large, clean surfaces without asking a single piece of timber to do something it was never naturally suited to do.
It can help us control movement.
It can improve consistency across a project.
And sometimes, importantly, it can allow us to use timber more intelligently.
That last point matters.
Because good design is not about proving how much expensive material you can put into a piece.
It is about understanding what the material needs to do.
The Real Design Conversation Begins With Grain
Then there is the grain.
This is where, for me, furniture stops being simply about material and starts becoming about composition.
Grain is not decoration.
It is part of the architecture of the piece.
Where does it begin?
Where does it end?
What happens when two doors meet?
Does the grain continue across them?
Does it wrap around a corner?
Does the direction of the grain reinforce the geometry?
Does it create movement?
Does it create calm?
Or does it fight the form?
These decisions may seem small.
They are not.
You can use one of the most expensive veneers available and still produce a badly designed piece of furniture.
Because material alone does not make good design.
The relationship between material, proportion, structure and intention does.
A beautiful grain placed without consideration can become visual noise.
The same grain, carefully positioned, can make a simple cabinet feel almost architectural.
That is the difference between selecting a material and designing with it.
A Good Designer Knows When Not to Use Solid Wood
This is perhaps the part of the conversation that gets people uncomfortable.
Sometimes the best decision is not to use solid timber.
That does not make the designer less of a woodworker.
It may demonstrate a deeper understanding of the material.
Imagine designing a large wardrobe door.
You could insist on making the entire panel from solid timber because it sounds more authentic.
But if the size, construction and environment make that decision unnecessarily vulnerable to movement, why insist on it?
The material should not become a religion.
It should become a tool.
Sometimes that tool is solid wood.
Sometimes it is veneer over an engineered substrate.
Sometimes it is plywood.
Sometimes it is another engineered panel.
And sometimes the most intelligent answer is a combination of several materials.
The question should always be:
What is the right material for this idea?
Not:
Which material sounds the most impressive?
The Material Should Serve the Idea
This is one of the principles that guides my work as Creative Director of The Snug Company.
We don’t begin a project by deciding that every component must be made from solid timber.
We begin with the idea.
What are we trying to create?
How should it feel?
How large should it be?
How will it be used?
What kind of environment will it live in?
What needs to remain structurally stable?
Where should the material be celebrated?
Where should it disappear?
Once those questions are answered, material selection becomes much more intelligent.
A material can be beautiful and still be wrong for an application.
A less glamorous material can be exactly right.
That is the part of furniture design that often gets overlooked because it is less visible.
The finished piece doesn’t tell you every decision that went into making it.
You simply experience the result.
Material Honesty Is Not About Showing Everything
There is a misconception that material honesty means exposing everything.
I don’t think it does.
Material honesty means that the material is being used truthfully.
If something is veneer, there is nothing dishonest about that.
If a cabinet uses an engineered substrate because it gives the designer greater control over stability and precision, that is not a compromise.
It is a design decision.
The dishonesty comes when we use materials without understanding them, or when we disguise poor design with expensive finishes.
A beautiful veneer cannot rescue bad proportions.
Solid timber cannot rescue bad joinery.
An expensive material cannot rescue an uninformed idea.
The material can only help the design become what it was intended to be.
The Future Is Not Solid Versus Engineered
I don’t think the future of furniture belongs to solid timber.
I don’t think it belongs to engineered panels either.
I think the future belongs to material intelligence.
Knowing what each material can do.
Knowing what it cannot do.
Understanding how different materials behave together.
Knowing when to expose a grain and when to quiet it.
Knowing when a solid piece of timber is the most appropriate answer.
And knowing when engineering the material produces a better result.
This is particularly important as African design continues to develop its own language.
We should not be designing furniture simply to prove that we can access the same materials as everyone else.
We should be asking better questions about our environment, our climate, our resources, our craftsmanship and the way people live.
The goal should not be to make furniture that looks expensive.
It should be to make furniture that makes sense.
What We Owe the Material
As makers, we have a responsibility to the materials we use.
Every piece of timber represents time.
Every engineered panel represents a different kind of industrial intelligence.
Every sheet, board, veneer and component eventually becomes part of someone’s environment.
So, I don’t believe the highest form of craftsmanship is using the most expensive material.
I believe it is using material with understanding.
Respecting its strengths.
Working around its weaknesses.
And allowing it to become part of a larger idea.
At The Snug Company, that is the approach we continue to pursue.
Sometimes it is solid wood.
Sometimes it is veneer.
Sometimes it is an engineered board.
Sometimes it is all three.
The point is not to prove what we used.
The point is to make the material behave beautifully.
Because good furniture isn’t about showing you what it is made from.
It is about making you understand why it was made that way.
And perhaps that is the more interesting question.
Not Is this real wood?
But:
Was the material chosen intelligently?
Was it designed honestly?
And does the finished piece deserve to exist?
That is where I think the conversation should begin.
— Richard / The Wood Brutalist
Toosin is a dedicated sports writer with a strong background in crafting engaging and insightful content. With experience at Goal, he has developed a sharp editorial sense and a refined storytelling approach that brings depth and perspective to sports journalism. His passion for the game goes beyond the headlines, as he captures both the excitement of the sport and the compelling human narratives behind each event. Toosin’s work resonates with a broad and diverse audience, making global sports stories accessible, relatable, and impactful.
