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Bend it, shape it, anyway you want it.

Where to buy contemporary plywood furniture and accessories.

Plywood is an adaptable product that takes natural timber and makes it better and stronger, just make sure it's ethically sourced.

Plywood has long inspired furniture designers. The structural advantages over solid timber arise from the use of many thin layers with the grain running in different directions. The thin laminations also allow easy moulding into fairly complex shapes that couldn't be accomplished with solid timber.

And as timber products come from natural, renewable sources and are themselves biodegradeable plywood's environmentally-friendly, right? Not always is the answer. Most medium-range plywood available today is faced with tropical hardwood. (The UK currently imports more than one million cubic metres of tropical hardwood annually, mostly in the form of plywood).

The Centre for Alternative Technology (www.cat.org.uk) advises consumers look out for plywood with FSC-certification ' NB certification needs to apply to the entire thickness so although '70% FSC content' sounds good it can still hide unsustainable, tropical hardwood in the inner layers. And CAT reckons there is really no good reason to use anything but European plywood. The shorter transport distances reduce the embodied energy considerably.

David Mellor Design www.davidmellordesign.co.uk

Range of simple understated birch plywood trays designed by Corin Mellor and made in a specialist workshop in Sheffield in a natural finish or red or black lacquer.

Eco Interiors www.ecointeriors-uk.com

Experienced sustainable outfit designing, manufacturing and installing understated ecological kitchen furniture crafted from materials like FSC-certified birch plywood and laminated bamboo.

Ekoply www.ekoply.com

A range of FSC-certified plywood sheet materials, offering the guarantee that the harvest of timber maintains the forest's biodiversity, productivity and ecological processes.

Isokon Plus www.isokonplus.com

Reproductions of, amongst others, Marcel Breuer's 1930s bent plywood designs for the original Isokon Furniture Company, as well as an ever-growing selection of pieces by contemporary designers such as Michael Sodeau and Barber Osgerby.

Oreka Kids www.orekakids.com

Groovy-looking, multi-functional 'Biscuit' furniture for kids by design luminaries like Jane Atfield and Matthew Hilton. Nice (all the pieces are named after biscuits) is a stepped storage trolley unit, which, the makers suggest, could metamorphose into a Trojan horse, train or castle and in later life a TV and video stand or computer station.

Schimidinger www.schmidingermodul.at

Elegantly minimal birch and beech plywood furniture from Austria taking in desks, and side and dining tables. Clever storage solutions include: modul 45, a simple cube-shaped cupboard on adjustable metal legs; drum, a circular, lidded storage box on casters that can be used as a table as well as for storage and seating; and fatty containers which resemble old-fashioned vanity cases.

Unto This Last www.untothislast.co.uk

Striking and innovative birch ply furniture ' either left natural or stained - made to customer's own specifications at prices that match off-the-shelf equivalents in high street stores.

Otto Furniture www.ottofurniture.com

Contemporary style and sustainability. Furniture for the home, and home office.