Future Makers: Chairs by New Designers

On view from June 20, 2025

Created in partnership with Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Wilson School of Design (KPU) and the Museum of Vancouver (MOV), Future Makers: Chairs by New Designers brings together sustainability, design innovation and a critical reflection on the history of everyday material.

MOV issued a challenge: transform decades-old marine-grade mahogany into chairs fit for a new era. The material had a story: once used by Vancouver’s marine industry, it sat fallow for decades before it was donated to the MOV. The objective was simple—turn forgotten material into something useful again. KPU didn’t just accept the challenge. The school built an entire curriculum around it.

The KPU student design teams created 15 original chair prototypes using this vintage wood—wood that is rooted in a deeper and more difficult history: the extractive trade of tropical hardwoods that contributed to widespread deforestation across Central America. When the MOV accepted the donation, it meant acknowledging that legacy.

Students were invited to engage with the wood’s colonial past and environmental cost. Together, the partners agreed that proceeds from any future chair sales will support Indigenous-led reforestation programs in Guatemala—a commitment to repair that was embedded in the project.

Through collaborative mentorship, KPU faculty and MOV staff encouraged students to approach design not just as a technical exercise, but as an opportunity for cultural and ecological stewardship. The resulting works are surprising, thoughtful, and often poetic. Each chair is a meditation on connection, responsibility and what it means to shape the future through design.

12 of These chairs are available to purchase via our online auction!

Proceeds from the auction will support the Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén (ACOFOP), an association of 24 Indigenous and rural organizations that use community forest management practices to develop activities for sustainable timber and non-timber forest use, community tourism, local capacity building and for the socioeconomic benefit of the communities in the Maya Biosphere Reserve— including forest preservation and reforestation. The Reserve was created in 1990 to protect the largest area of American tropical forest remaining north of the Amazon.

The auction will run from June 19 through 5:00pm on September 17, 2025. Note that shipping is unavailable. Chairs must be picked up in person from the Museum of Vancouver by purchaser. ID will be requested upon pickup. Items cannot be picked up before the exhibition closes in January, 2026. Purchasers will be contacted to arrange pick up times.

Future Makers Auction