AFS.DSGN

Anna Stechschulte for AFS.DSGN is a furniture designer and maker working in Chicago. Her practice centers on hardwood maple, which she shapes through turning and traditional joinery before finishing pieces in either natural surfaces that celebrate the grain or saturated, high-gloss lacquers that push her work in a more striking direction. She often begins with materials themselves, collecting textiles and hides before a design takes form, including leathers sourced from Horween, the local Chicago tannery.

Stechschulte combines traditional techniques with modern ideas to create objects meant for contemporary domestic life. Her seating pairs turned wood frames with slings of silk, wool, and cowhide, exploring the tension between refinement and rawness, gloss and matte, the familiar and the unexpected. Her influences range from Scandinavian furniture and alpine woodcraft to Italian design history, shaped by time spent in Milan and the Dolomites.

At the heart of her work is the relationship between object and user. Stechschulte is interested in how furniture reflects personal identity within the home and how craft can foster intentionality and intimacy in a fast-paced world. Her pieces are conceived as modern heirlooms, made to feel both unusual and deeply familiar at once.