Ex-Works: The next generation of furniture design

What happens when emerging designers meet an industry in constant change?

Ex-Works is a platform connecting design students with the Swedish furniture industry. It brings together new ideas, different perspectives and the people who will help shape what furniture design can become.

Each year, graduating students from five of Sweden’s leading design schools are invited to present their work. In 2026, Ex-Works brings together more than 40 projects from Konstfack, Malmstens and Beckmans, HDK-Valand and HDK-Valand Campus Steneby.

All projects share common focus on furniture, but take different approaches to materials, techniques and production. Together, they offer a glimpse onto the questions occupying a new generation of designers: how we use resources, how things are made, what we choose to keep and the role design can play in a changing world.

Ex-Works is not only about presenting finished projects. At its heart is the meeting between people at the beginning of their professional lives and an established furniture industry with knowledge, experience and its own questions about the future.

For students, it is an opportunity to bring their work into a wider context. For the industry, it is a chance to encounter new perspectives, methods and ways of thinking.

That exchange is central to Ex-Works. Rather than trying to predict what comes next, the platform creates opportunities for conversations about furniture design and the ideas shaping it today.

While Museum of Furniture Studies is taking shape in Älmhult, this year’s Ex-Works exhibition takes place entirely online.

The digital exhibition presents the work of more than 40 graduating designers. Each student is introduced through a short biography and a film presenting their graduation project, offering visitors an insight into the ideas and creative processes behind their work.

“Seeing the graduation projects of design students is always incredibly exciting and fascinating. This year, the students have documented their projects themselves, offering an insight into their process, from the initial idea to the finished product. Among the 40 projects presented this year, there are many interesting ideas and innovative solutions to discover, offering a glimpse of where the future of design might be heading,” says Eva Lilja Löwenhielm, Museum Director at Museum of Furniture Studies.

Moving online also means the projects can reach beyond a physical exhibition, making them accessible to people across the furniture and design industry as well as anyone interested in the work emerging from Sweden’s design schools today.

Museum of Furniture Studies brings together furniture design from different times and perspectives. While the collection looks at more than a century of furniture design, Ex-Works introduces the work of designers at the beginning of their careers.

Together, they create a broader picture of furniture design, from what has already been made to the ideas and questions emerging today.