Jury Alumni

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  Éva Goicochea

  Founder and CEO, Maude

  2021 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Éva Goicochea spent her early career as a legislative aide in healthcare then 10+ years in ecommerce and digital strategy working with Squarespace, adidas, and Everlane. She co-founded her first company, Tinker Watches, in 2015. Converging her passion for healthcare and brand, she launched maude, an inclusive modern sexual wellness company in 2018. To-date, she's one of only 20 Latinx women to raise over $4 million and was voted Entrepreneur's 2019 100 Most Powerful Women, WWD's 60 Power Players in Healthy and Beauty, and Fast Company's 2021 Next 1000. In 2020, she joined the board of Peer Health Exchange.

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  Josh Itiola

  Designer and Planner, Vitsoe

  2021 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

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  Randall Jones

  Interior Designer, Yabu Pushelberg

  2021 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Randall Jones is an interior designer at Yabu Pushelberg and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design. She is an alumna of Howard University and received her MFA in Interior Design from Parsons School of Design. She founded Obsidian, the black student design organization at Parsons in the Fall of 2018. She also serves on the Parsons Committee on Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice. Randall is committed to working to help expand the pipeline of students and professionals that are under-represented in the design industry. Currently, her work focuses in luxury hospitality, retail, and residential design. Prior to interior design, Randall spent 7 years working within the advertising and marketing space as an Art Director.

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  Ben Gaffney

  VP of International Design Development, L. Ercolani

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain

  Ben Gaffney is the Vice President of International Design Development for L. Ercolani, the 100-year-old U.K. design brand, and Founder of AileenJames, Retail and Design Partners. Ben is an industry veteran who has collaborated with Norm Architects, Design Within Reach, Menu A/S, HNI Group, and Atlason studio to bring innovative design solutions to a global market. Prior to his work with L. Ercolani and AileenJames, he was the Head of Product Development for Design Within Reach.

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  Steven Harrington

  Co-Founder, National Forest

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Steven Harrington is a Los Angeles–based designer and cofounder of design firm, National Forest. Steven is best known for his bright, iconic work that encourages a two-way conversation between the artist and viewer. Embracing a multimedia approach, Harrington’s portfolio includes large-scale installations, limited-edition books, product designs, graphic design, illustration, fine art and sculptures. Alongside his commercial work, Harrington has exhibited artwork in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Tokyo, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Brussels, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Melbourne, and Dallas. Recent work examples include an installation at the MIMA Museum in Brussels, a product collection for Nike, A category launch
  for BAPE, and a permanent outdoor sculpture for Loft 1 Korea.
  
  Ongoing sample clients include: Apple, Google, Hypebeast, Moleskine, Nike, International Olympics Committee & Bape.

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  David Kennedy

  VP of Sales, Berndhart Design

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  David Kennedy is the Vice President of Sales at Bernhardt Design, the globally renowned design brand. A life-long design enthusiast, David is an experienced executive having spent over 20 years’ in luxury furniture sales, design and manufacturing. Prior to joining Bernhardt Design, David has held executive positions at Design Within Reach / Herman Miller, DEDON, Brown Jordan and Century Furniture. David is a former ASID national board member of and serves as a corporate advocate of Be Original Americas.

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  Hlynur V. Atlason

  Founder, ATLASON

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Hlynur V. Atlason, leads his eponymous design studio ATLASON, based in Manhattan. Leading a team of world-class strategists, innovators and designers, practicing a method of design, deeply informed by research, brand and craft. ATLASON delivers strategy, design innovation and manufacturing expertise, guaranteeing everything imagined, can be made.
  
  ATLASON/studio, his own product design firm founded in 2004, has since built a comprehensive portfolio of furniture, consumer lifestyle products and packaging in collaboration with MoMA, DWR, Ercol, Umbra, Artecnica, Estée Lauder, Microsoft, and Stella Artois.
  
  Hlynur is an adjunct lecturer at School of Visual Arts, Products of Design Masters Degree Program, NYC.

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  Gabriel Tan

  Founder, Gabriel Tan Studio & Creative Director, Ariake, Gabriel Tan Studio

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain

  Gabriel Tan is the principal and founder of Gabriel Tan Studio, a design practice working across the borders of craft, culture and technology. The studio is interested in new ways to interpret luxury and break archetypes and clients include Blå Station, Design Within Reach, The Conran Shop, Ishinomaki Lab, Takata Lemnos, Abstracta and Authentics. Gabriel is also the creative director of Japanese furniture brand Ariake and Singapore based Turn Handles.
  
  The works of Gabriel Tan have been exhibited in Milan, New York, Stockholm, London, Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, Singapore and he has guest lectured at Lasalle College of the Arts, National University of Singapore, University of Oregon, Pratt Institute and also served as a jury member at the Inde Awards and Cannes Lions Festival.

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  Svenja Diekmann

  Head of Design and R&D, Hem

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Svenja Diekmann is the Head of Design for Stockholm-based design brand, Hem where she oversees the brand’s daily design operations, from Hem’s various design departments, to material and color research, to R&D work with their European factory network. She has overseen some of Hem’s most iconic products, such as the Palo sofa, Alphabeta lamps and the Arthur Arbesser blankets and rugs, to name a few. Prior to her work with Hem, she worked with many some of Europe’s leading design firms, such as Patricia Urqiola.

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  Signe Hytte

  Furniture & Product Designer, Signe Hytte

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Signe Hytte is a Copenhagen-based furniture and product designer. The essence of her work is simplicity, aiming to create honest and functional objects that improve everyday life. Her goal is the most challenging and rewarding aspect of designing: reducing a piece to its core.
  
  Apart from working with brands like New Works and Menu, she is Head of Design at the Danish furniture and lighting company & tradition. Her work is a regular fixture at the Stockholm, Milan and Cologne furniture fairs, and she has been featured in design and art exhibitions globally.
  
  She has studied Aesthetics and Culture at the University of Aarhus, and she graduated from the Design + Business school TEKO in 2012.

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  Kilian Schindler

  Founder, Bureau Kilian Schindler

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Kilian Schindler studied product design in Germany and France. Werner Aisslinger, James Irvine, and Stefan Diez amongst others have overseen his projects. Since setting up his multi-disciplinary design bureau he has realized commissioned projects for internationally renowned companies in different fields: from product design to furniture as well as exhibition design.
  
  Since 2014 Kilian Schindler is doing the creative direction for TOLIX, France. His works have been recognized with coveted design awards, including German Design Award (gold), IF Product Design Award (gold) as well as the Red Dot Design Award. His designs were exhibited and published worldwide.
  
  Kilian Schindler has been teaching as visiting professor in the Product Design department at -Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung- (University of Arts and Design) in Karlsruhe, Germany.

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  Kim Weckstrøm Jensen

  CEO, Le Klint

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Kim – has taken a different route to the design business than most. From the Danish Army to many years in the Norwegian Mountains working with tourism – a back injury forced Kim to change profession – and he joined Stokke Tripp Trapp as regional sales manager. Finally in 1998, he came back home to LE KLINT as export manager – and since 2001, he has been CEO.

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  John and Wonhee Arndt

  Partners, Studio Gorm

  2018 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain

  Studio Gorm was founded in 2007 by John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong Arndt.
  
  As professors in the Product Design department at the University of Oregon, they apply their insightful academic research on culture, history and technology to refocus modern design through the prism of time, exploring the transformation of objects and ideas as they evolve to fit the demands and expectations of modern life.
  
  As designers of functional objects, they draw from their background in sculpture and craft to create works that balance function and aesthetics. Their methods are deeply rooted in the act of physical making where an object’s true form evolves out of an experimental constructive approach to design.

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  Thom Fougere

  Founder, Thom Fougere Studio

  2018 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Thom Fougere Studio was founded in the fall of 2015 in Winnipeg, Canada. The studio works within various fields of art and design, but with a focus on furniture and products for the home. All projects are characterized by careful research into materiality, history, aesthetics, and functionality. The studio offers full creative direction, furniture and interior design services.
  
  Thom Fougere (1987) studied architecture at the University of Manitoba before working in furniture and product design. In 2011, after his studies in Architecture, he was appointed Creative Director of Canadian furniture design house EQ3 at the age of 24. There he initiated a rebranding of the company including a transformation of the product line, graphic design, photography, interiors and the architectural design of stores. Thom Fougere continues to investigate how we live and interact with objects in our homes, creating pieces that are both subtle and archetypal in form. His works have been shown internationally at the design fairs in Milan, Stockholm, New York, and Toronto.

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  Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm

  Founder, Chris L. Halstrom

  2018 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm was born 1977 and lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Halstrøm mainly works with furniture and smaller objects for the home always taking a starting point in everyday situations. She finds it interesting to work with familiarity and neutrality as topics in order to create new expressions and purposes for objects. This applies whether working with companies such as Skagerak, Frama and +Halle or with objects for exhibitions. In 2017 she received the Three Year Work grant from The Danish Arts forundation / Statens Kunstfond.
  
  She established her own studio in 2007 after graduating from The Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen with prior studies in Stockholm, Sweden and Berlin, Germany.
  
  In addition to running her own studio, Halstrøm is part of the duo INCLUDED MIDDLE with textile designer Margrethe Odgaard. Together, they design furniture and objects from the two simple questions; what if colour and pattern are seen as something suggesting form and what if form is seen as something suggesting pattern.

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  Christopher Specce

  Independent Designer & Professor, Rhode Island School of Design

  2018 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Christopher Specce is a designer and teacher working in Providence, Rhode Island. His practice spans from commercially oriented product design to creating experimental, one a kind of objects. In addition to serving as associate professor in the Department of Furniture Design at Rhode Island School of Design, his professional experiences include projects across the furniture and consumer product industries. Prior to joining the full-time faculty at RISD, he was lead designer at the consultancy Observatory, where he contributed to projects for clients including Herman Miller and P&G.
  
  With a belief that designed objects make an important contribution to culture, he explores the various ways that designers can embed objects with meaning. His studio practice features extensive use of digital design and fabrication tools alongside hands-on work with materials to create works that are at once mundane, delightful, modest, and forthright.