Shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2024 emerging designer of the year, Mari Koppanen is a Finnish designer and researcher.

Operating at the intersection of design, material innovation and artistic inquiry, Koppanen's eponymous studio explores the potential of fungal materials and pigments.

Combining traditional craft techniques with a forward-thinking approach, Koppanen contributes to preserving and evolving the disappearing knowledge of Amadou – a fungal material derived from tinder mushrooms.

Koppanen recently resurrected a suede-like material, historically made in parts of central Romania from hoof fungus, to create a stool and bench.

Mari Koppanen has been shortlisted in the emerging designer of the year category of Dezeen Awards 2024.