From symposiums to art festivals, architectural workshops to design talks and even the mission statements of newfangled creative practices and agencies, the focus upon collaboration has gained points as an essential ingredient for inclusive design in recent years. Emerging in stark contrast against the celebrity culture that disproportionately extols creatives for their ‘iconic’ individual outputs across spaces, galleries and homes, this culture of collective creation addresses the desires of the stakeholders, utilises the expertise and vision of professionals and employs the adeptness of specialised collaborators, whilst also blurring the boundaries between these disparate roles, for suggestions to permeate across the spectrum of individuals involved in the task at hand.

While such practices are often associated with projects undertaken at the grassroots level, Federico Negro founded Canoa to serve as a collaborative digital design tool and 'AI co-pilot' for interior designers, in order to democratise the practice of designing good habitats via the usage of digital technology. Founded by Negro in 2019 as a response to the design sector’s failure to address current environmental issues, Canoa seeks to “re-engineer wasteful 20^th century processes for design, sourcing and asset management of furniture in commercial real estate portfolios in order to streamline workflows and help designers drastically reduce waste in their work,” as delineated in their mission statement. Its AI-assisted, collaborative digital tool enables interior designers to share mood boards, layouts, product schedules and more with their teams and clients and invite their creative inputs and suggestions.

Keeping in stride with their collaborative intent, Canoa designed an uplifting, community-centric experience at The Lookbook Lounge during The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) which took place from May 19 - 21, 2024, in New York, USA. More recently, the team at Canoa also hosted VESSEL, a group exhibition of 28 independent makers, during the San Francisco Design Week on June 7, 2024. Both these outputs integrated the core collaborative ethos of Canoa to showcase the strides that can be made when people get together to simplify complicated processes and design collaborative terrains.

Apart from democratising the act of designing, Canoa strongly attempts to utilise contemporary technological advancements to amplify individual skills and utilise them in ways that can be helpful not only for humans but other sentient beings and the environment as well. “Our dismal track record on the environment is evidence of our inability to scale and respond to the needs of a human race that has gone from 2.6 billion in 1950 to seven billion in 2011 and is expected to reach 11 billion by the end of this century according to the UN. We failed to keep up. And, have done so to the detriment of our planet. Providing a good quality of life to billions who have a right to seek it without depleting our natural resources is the central challenge to our industry in the early 21^st century. We know how to provide good, healthy environments. We’ve known how to do this for a long time. We just don’t know how to do it at scale,” Canoa’s manifesto informs.

Recognising the potential of artificial intelligence, Canoa, which includes a team of designers, technologists, architects, data scientists and engineers, locates the essentiality of collaboration between human creativity and AI innovation. Leveraging the provisions of this tool can help scale processes that are in sync with the environment, whilst also helping individuals achieve respectable habitats. Canoa aims to utilise AI to make sustainable design more accessible by scaling up and simplifying the processes requisite for fermenting mindful systems.

Canoa at ICFF

The Brooklyn-based practice's showcase at the 35th edition of ICFF, in Javits Center, was designed by Alma Lopez, Head of Creative, Canoa. The programming and production, on the other hand, was spearheaded by Elizabeth Wert, Head of Brand, Canoa. The event, held across three days, invited visitors to explore and understand how design happens—from its conceptualisation to its realisation. In bringing the backend process to the forefront, Canoa wanted to build general interest in the creative journey that leads to the final product and cultivate an open discussion about community needs. “As designers ourselves, we know how design gets done, the process is just as important as the result. This year, we participated in ICFF to showcase this belief and to connect with the public, and our users firsthand. We invited designers at all career stages to join workshops, talks and panels to discuss their processes. Everyone, from students to firm principals, was welcome in the Look Book Lounge to share and learn. For Canoa, activating in person truly felt like a perfect partnership,” shares Federico Negro, Founder and CEO of Canoa.

Some of the happenings at Canoa’s booth, during ICFF, included Community Workshops, a panel called ‘The New Design Habit’and open conversations about the process of designing. Within the space, interior designers, furniture brands and design enthusiasts got together to discuss each step of the creative process, from initial sketches and inspirations to the final outputs. The talk, held on May 19, 2024, featured Federico Negro, Ben Dreith (US Editor, Dezeen), Kate Swanson (Founder of Fletcher Road), Petrus Palmer (Founder and CEO of Hem) and Anand Sheth (Founder and Architect, Studio Anand Sheth). The Community Workshop hosted on May 20 was attended by Sergio Mondragon (Lead Designer, AvroKO), Anand Sheth, Holland Denvir (Founder, Denvir Enterprises) and Karen John (Founder and Elana Daniels Won, Senior Client Development Manager, HEARTWORK) and participants on May 21 included Cherish Rosas (Director Design Markets, Lewis Stevenson), Ilan Rubin (Founder of the Furniture Brand, iLAN iLAN) and Anita Kuzmarskis (Sales Director North America, Normann Copenhagen).

Speaking about the curatorial process of the 1000 square foot booth, Lopez shares, “At ICFF this year, I wanted to design something that felt like a home away from home to our community and visitors. The aim was to create a place that felt relatable. I chose nine furniture and product brands, that are also in our platform’s community, that I knew all could play well together and also value collaboration in their designs (The brands ranged from established ones like Hem, Normann Copenhagen, Heartwork and RAD to smaller, independent ones like Work in Progress, iLAN iLAN, Studio Anand Sheth, Denvir Enterprises and Nodi Rugs.) I had a fun challenge with a bright yellow rug that ran throughout the space as a result of ICFF’s branding and wayfinding design, so I responded with a mellow, natural-coloured palette that would balance its playfulness.”

Canoa at San Francisco Design Week

The exhibition VESSEL by Canoa, held at Pallas Annex, on the top floor of Pallas Gallery in the historic Goodman Building, during the San Francisco Design Week was curated by San Francisco-based architect Anand Sheth, who is also the founder of the eponymous Studio Anand Sheth. The event centred on platforming the works of 27 artists and furniture and interior designers who have strong ties to and echoes from the Bay Area within their practices. The creatives were asked by Sheth to make a vessel and then document their journey on Canoa’s Canvas tool. This led to the documentation of the creative process in explicit detail. The inclusion of individuals from various creative disciplines resulted in myriad interpretations of the term ‘vessel’ and manifested via vases of various sizes, spatialities and purposes, depending on their designer.

“The concept of a vessel has been with me for a while, it's how I consider my relationship to myself, my immigrant family, my city, my industry. I was eager to explore this personal value with people who share the Bay Area with me and I knew they would interpret and iterate on it in fascinating ways. The notion of a vessel is so open-ended,” shares Sheth. The group exhibition also included the showcase of a film highlighting the process of the participating artists with footage of them working within their studios on their individual concepts. Some of the participating creatives include interior and product designers Utharaa Zacharias and Palaash Chaudhary (soft-geometry), interior designer Amanda Swain (Othr Space), architectural designer Andrei Hakhovich (Gradient Matter), landscape architect Anooshey Rahim (Dune Hai), furniture designer Brandt Hewitt (Medium Small), interdisciplinary artist Cecilia Mignon, spatial designer F. Jason Campbell (ELL Projects), fine artist and woodworker Joe Ferriso, glass artist Meryl Pataky and photographer Robert Canal, amongst others.

From San Francisco, the exhibition travels to the Fig and Oak salon for Los Angeles Design Weekend on June 21. VESSEL is one of the many shows that are scheduled to be held across North America, to better highlight vernacular practices and local voices, whilst also foregrounding the benefits of Canoa as a tool to understand processes. “The effort is a means of manifesting their mission in person, bringing distinct creative communities together and amplifying their individual narratives and voices,” the press release mentions.

Canoa fulfils its mission statement via both the digital tool designed for inclusive viewing and collaborative inputs as well as via workshops and exhibitions hosted by the practice to encourage the exploration of backend creative processes. The latter also pivots on creating spaces that can be approached and experienced by individuals from all helms of life— designers and makers, builders and clients—to subvert the stratification and division of labour that exists in the creative industry.