AHEC launches Community: following Australia and New Zealand’s leading designer-makers as they create in American hardwoods

The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) have launched Community, a new project following five of Australia and New Zealand’s most exciting design talents as they each create an original piece of furniture in American hardwoods.

Fine furniture is widely admired, but the process and skill behind its creation, and the material it’s made from, rarely get the same attention. Community sets out to change that, sharing an unfiltered look inside the workshop as it happens: the thinking, the technique, and the evolution of a design as it takes shape in the maker’s hands.

The project also reflects something central to how designer-makers work – a community that shares ideas, approaches, workloads, even tools and studio space. Three Melbourne-based designer-makers, Simeon Dux, Vivienne Wong and Nae Tanakorn and Dieter Ingles and Ted Synnott from Auckland, will each develop a piece using American red oak, cherry or maple. Their process from first concept through to a finished piece across 2026 will be documented and shared as it unfolds across social channels.

The finished designs are not the ending. On completion of their piece, each designer will nominate a new participant in the project, thus extending and expanding the Community collaboration.

To follow the journey, find AHEC on Instagram at @ahec_anz.