Characterizing Canada’s design identity has never been an easy feat, but Winnipeg-based furniture company EQ3 is up to the task with the launch of Assembly, a new product line featuring custom pieces by 10 designers and studios from across the country. “Often people describe our design inspirations as Scandinavian, American mid-century modern, Italian, etc.,” says EQ3 president and CEO Peter Tielmann. “We see EQ3 Assembly as an introduction to the new guard of Canadian designers, a snapshot of what young Canadian design looks like now and how it might evolve in the future.”
The Assembly collection of accessories and small furnishings ranges from $14.99 for a beaver teeth–inspired bottle opener by Quebec City’s Six Point Un to $999 for a sculptural glass-top dining table by B.C.-based Shawn Place. “Our country is so vast, and our experiences so varied, that [Canada’s] design identity is more a curation than that of a single idea,” says Place. “Assembly does a great job of capturing that varied identity.”
For EQ3, providing a platform for emerging designers is as much about driving innovation as it is about plugging the country’s brain drain. “We find it especially important to provide these opportunities to Canadian designers, as many of our most talented designers end up leaving the country in hopes of establishing themselves abroad, rather than finding success here in Canada,” says Tielmann.
Assembly contributor and Toronto designer Dylan McKinnon agrees: “My hope is that other design brands or manufacturers might see the logic in this, and also begin to take advantage of this very capable yet underutilized talent pool.”
EQ3 Assembly launches exclusively this weekend at the 18th annual Interior Design Show and the EQ3 Hanna Avenue location in Toronto. The collection will be available at EQ3 stores across Canada and the U.S. and online at eq3.com starting Feb. 15.