Bernett’s colleague at CDS and collaborator on the Canvas project, Nicholas Dodziuk, says his earliest awareness of design came from a kids’ table and chair set by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. “We grew up in an eclectic house but that really stood out to me,” he recalls, noting that his mother was an artist who often brought him to the Noguchi Museum, which was close to where they lived in New York.

Bernett, too, feels that “knowing what has come before is very important to design, especially when it comes to furniture. The process is part of a continuum; you learn from what other people have done.”