Furniture Designer of the Year 2024: Ben Barber

You could call Ben Barber materialistic, and that would be a compliment. The Vancouver-based furniture designer has been perfecting his study of steel, brass, bronze, glass, wood, stone and other fundamentals of the trade for over a decade. One of our two 2024 Designers of the Year selects the materials for his bespoke works with the same industriousness and passion of a painter choosing a colour palette (so it’s not surprising that he studied fine arts at the Pratt Institute). “There’s no real set career for artists, but the furniture and interior design realm made sense to me,” Barber remembers. “It was something to grab on to.”

Ben Barber

The designer spent some time working at Vancouver’s Union Wood Co. and with art production teams on film sets before founding his eponymous studio in 2014. Each item in his collection is crafted in whatever material is best suited for its unique form and function.

Winner Winner
This isn’t the first time that the Xenolith long table has been recognized in Western Living: the piece earned a spot on our inaugural WL Design 25 list earlier this year. Photo by Pooya Nabei

Take the Xenolith long table and the Sanora bedside table: Xenolith is a curvilinear natural beauty in splotchy Patagonia granite and burnished brass, while Sanora is clean-lined, minimal aluminum custom powder-coated in crayon hues like orange, purple and yellow. Xenolith’s earthy stone matches the table’s organic figure; Sanora’s water jet-cut aluminum is well-suited to its rectangular silhouette. But both exhibit the designer’s unique structural mind—Xenolith is essentially two tables bolted together, holding each other up, and Sanora showcases its own manufacturing process. (“Instead of trying to hide how it’s produced, I wanted to highlight it—like assembling Lego of sorts,” Barber explains.)

Signed, Steeled, Delivered
Barber loves working with steel (see: the Niju credenza, above). “It’s a wonderful material to work with—it’s easy to understand and fabricating it is pretty painless,” he explains. The instant moodiness it brings to a space doesn’t hurt, either. Photo by Pooya Nabei

Judge Ross Bonetti, owner of Livingspace, says Barber’s use of metal and stone is “interesting, as it doesn’t rely on the warmth and familiarity of wood.” In Barber’s Niju credenza, for example, burnished brass and leather-wrapped handles balance out the sleek blackened steel. The designer takes cues from architecture, too—the hardworking Erebus table was influenced in part by Japanese engawas (covered exterior walkways that surround a building) and the imposing Rampart console is a nod to medieval battlement structures.

Own It
Barber has the first iteration of the Erebus coffee table in his own home. “It’s a tank,” he says with a laugh, “and you have all this extra storage underneath… I really enjoy pieces that can be effectively used as a gathering place.” Photo by Pooya Nabei

Building Blocks
The Sanora bedside table keeps no secrets, with water jet-cut aluminum pieces that fit together conspicuously. “I really wanted to celebrate the construction,” says the designer. Photo by Pooya Nabei

As impressive as these examples are, they’re not prescriptive—Barber’s furniture is made to order. “Just about every piece can be customized and everything is bespoke,” says the designer, “so we can always tweak it if needed.” There are endless variations in size, composition and (of course) material, but with his award-winning artistic eye and insider knowledge, he makes sure every client finds their perfect match.

History Lesson
Barber didn’t set out to make the Rampart console (below and above) medieval-inspired, but he noticed during the design process that the piece was reminiscent of battlement architecture. So, he read up. “Thankfully, we’re in a world where we are inundated with endless amounts of information,” he says. Photo by Pooya Nabei

Photo by Pooya Nabei

Q&A with BEN BARBER

Who do you admire most as a designer?

It’s a tie between Ettore Sottsass and Isamu Noguchi. Both had such long and prolific careers that were never pigeonholed into one medium or discipline. The tone and mood of the two feel very different but I think both took a similar approach to life as a creative.

What’s your go-to material of choice?

Steel, due to its abundance, ease of workability and strength.

What books are on your nightstand right now?

The Haar by David Sodergren and The Negative by Ansel Adams.

Do you have a favourite room from a movie?

The bedroom in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What’s your dream project?

I would love the opportunity to produce an entire home from the ground up. To have my hands in everything from the architecture, landscaping and interior design to the custom built-in furnishings.

What are your design pet peeves?

Designers who release whole collections that are only renderings. I need to see the physical, tangible and monetary work that went into making the pieces. If it’s a rendering, it’s only an idea.