IDS Vancouver always brings a little nostalgia for me. Each year I run into familiar faces who remind me how many people have supported this business along the way and the conversations that helped shape what ffabb has become.

Today I was blessed to have stumbled upon a talk about “design in a time of polarities” with Michael Sørensen the Global Marketing Director of Henning Larsen. Thank you to Tina Kulic for nudging me into a seat to have a listen. She knew.

The last question from the crowd was for advice to Canadian designers as someone from abroad. I loved his answer and it really has me reflecting. More eloquently than this, he replied that Canada was one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and that as a young country we are still in the teen years of architecture and design, still growing and finding our own groove.

He encouraged us to recognize what we have here in Canada and draw from the places and communities around us, rather than look to Europe or other older countries for inspiration. This really resonated and clarified what I have meant when I describe ffabb as West Coast inspired.

For me, that inspiration has always included the interiors taking shape around Vancouver: the homes innovative architects were building, the spaces designers were creating and the way people wanted to live in them. I wanted to make furniture that belonged in those homes.

I pictured our pieces being specified for remarkable spaces here on the West Coast, and I designed toward that possibility. Today, I open my inbox to requests from designers specifying ffabb pieces in award-winning homes. That still means a great deal to me. It is a quiet reminder that the work we set out to do 27 years ago has found its place.

At the show, the feedback I received was about the crisp contours and clean lines of our upholstered pieces. I loved hearing that, because those details take years of practice. Foam and fabric move, stretch and give. Asking them to hold a precise shape takes patience, skill and a lot of learning from the things that did not work the first time.

Canadian design has changed so much over the past decade, and ffabb has evolved alongside the community here.