Artek's Stool 60 Villi is the third special edition stool of 2023, honouring the design's 90th anniversary. Created in collaboration with the design duo Formafantasma, the stool celebrates the authentic beauty of birch wood: Stool 60 Villi is made of so-called wild birch that shows the material's natural variation in its entirety. The surface might have visible knots, marks or darker heartwood.

By using "wild birch", Artek wishes to challenge our expectations of visual uniformity in natural materials and to spark conversation about the need for a new, more sustainable aesthetic. Due to climate change, Finnish wood nowadays has more colour variations than before, as well as marks left by insects previously unseen in Finnish forests. These marks or knots do not affect the durability or usability of the wood but are only aesthetic limitations.

The Villi stool raises the question: should we cover these natural characteristics of wood or should we celebrate them, instead?