Artek 2nd CycleObject Passport
An unsolicited concept by Deckhaus · for 20 years of Artek 2nd Cycle

Every object carries a life.

A passport for every piece of Artek furniture, starting with one Stool 60. Scroll to open it.

Scroll to open
Object Passport · No 60-1967-0412 · Anniversary edition
01Its life, stamp by stamp

One stool. Four owners. Fifty-nine years.

Birch trees in a Finnish forest
Entry 0Finland · before 1967

It starts as a birch.

Solid Finnish birch, bent the way Aalto worked out in 1933. The record could begin here, before the stool exists.

Aalto stools from the 1970s, from the Artek 2nd Cycle Decades exhibition
1967Helsinki · Owner 1

First home: a kitchen in Töölö.

Bought new for a family kitchen. The birch is still bare.

Entry stamp
1979Helsinki · Owner 2

Painted white by its second owner.

To match a new kitchen. The paint is still on the legs today, worn back to the wood where hands and feet have been.

Change
1994Turku · Owner 3

A student flat. The seat is re-glued.

One leg works loose. A local joiner re-glues the seat. 150 km from where it started.

Repair
The Artek 2nd Cycle store in Helsinki
2011Helsinki · Artek 2nd Cycle

Bought back. Reconditioned, not restored.

The joint is redone properly. The worn paint is left as it is, because the wear is the record.

Repair
2026Basel · Owner 4

A new owner, 1,794 km away.

Sold through 2nd Cycle. This time the history goes with it: the passport is handed over with the stool.

Transfer
2026Artek 2nd Cycle · twenty years

Twenty years of second lives.

2nd Cycle began in 2006. Every piece it has saved since then has a story like this one, and most of them have never been written down.

Next stamp · Owner 5
02The tap

Tap the piece. Open its life.

01Hold a phone to the mark under the seat. No app.
02The first tap stamps the moment, dated to the minute, for 20 years of 2nd Cycle.
03The record opens: its lives, its journey, its care, and the transfer to the next owner.
Open the live passport
Or scan it
with your phone
Hold near the mark
The first tap: an anniversary stamp, twenty years of 2nd Cycle, dated to the minute The passport: Stool 60, 4 owners, 2 repairs, 2,095 km
03Why Artek. Why now.

A Stool 60 outlives its owners. Its story shouldn’t get lost.

Artek already publishes an environmental passport for each model. This goes one step further: a living record for each single piece, that travels with it from owner to owner.

2006Artek begins collecting pre-loved Aalto furniture. 2nd Cycle is born.
2026Twenty years of second lives. The right moment to give them a record.
2028Furniture enters the EU’s indicative timeline for ecodesign and Digital Product Passport requirements.
04The kit

Everything, ready to hand over.

A · The film

37 seconds. One life.

The idea in one piece of motion, made for LinkedIn in 4:5. Turn the sound on.

Cover
B · The printed passport

A passport you can hold. And tap.

Sixteen pages in passport format. A data page with a machine-readable line, a visa stamp for every owner, birch growth rings as the security pattern, and an NFC chip under the cover.

Format
88 × 125 mm
Pages
16, saddle-stitched
Cover
Red board, gold hot foil
Inside
NFC chip, cream paper
Laser-etched seal with QR code on the birch seat of a Stool 60
C · The mark

Burned into the birch. Not stuck on it.

A 40 mm seal etched under the seat, paired with an NFC tag. It reads with a tap or with the camera, and stays with the piece.

D · The case study

Ten pages for LinkedIn.

Tap a page to open it
05The pilot

Start with ten pieces. In one store.

A small test in the 2nd Cycle store in Helsinki, timed with the twentieth year. Easy to say yes to, easy to measure.

The pilot on one page
01

Ten pieces get a passport

Each one gets a removable NFC tag and its own live record, written with what 2nd Cycle already knows about where it came from. Nothing is fixed to the furniture.

02

Eight weeks on the shop floor

Customers tap a piece and read its life before they buy it. Buyers take the passport home with the piece.

03

We measure three things

Taps per piece, time spent in the record, and how many buyers activate the passport after the sale.

04

Then decide

If it works, the record can start earlier: at the forest, before a new piece is even made.

Birch trees in a Finnish forestEntry 0 · where the next records could begin
06Made in Helsinki by Deckhaus

Twenty years of second lives
deserve a passport.

The coffee’s on me.

Pick a day
Who
Rodrigo García, founder of Deckhaus
Email
Studio
deckhaus.studio