A Vancouver furniture designer crafts multi-purpose pieces with Scandinavian charm.

“Designing is not a super-conscious thing to me—it’s sort of a gut feeling,” says Marni Bowman.

Though she may not use the word herself, she’s a natural: someone who turned a degree in natural resource conservation (and a woodworking class at a community centre) into a hands-on relationship with wood when she opened her Franklin St. Studio in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood four years ago.

The material, under her hands, is transformed into clever dual-purpose pieces with a slight Scandinavian bent—a sleek walnut medicine cabinet; her double-sided T.H. room unit with plank shelves, a mirror and a work surface.

“I design things that are first and foremost attractive, but second, highly functional,” says the designer. “Everything is customizable and dynamic. Nothing is static.”

Shop Talk: Furniture designer Marni Bowman and her T.H. room unit in her Strathcona workshop.

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Jessica Palacio

Jessica Palacio