Anyone who’s been reading Sight Unseen for some amount of time knows that talent scouting — and, in particular, attempting to divine who will be the Next Big Thing — is one of our favorite pastimes. And yet, 20 years into our design career, it remains as mysterious an art as ever. Sometimes you get a sui generis artist like Misha Kahn, who was graduating from RISD at the time we first showed his work and 10 years later was selling pieces for nearly $50,000 at auction; sometimes you anoint on the basis of a few intriguing forms only to have that designer all but disappear. Most of our scouting happens via one of two avenues: the Internet, where we’re constantly bookmarking images on Instagram and perusing submissions, or IRL, at various design fairs and gallery shows across the world. So when the Stockholm Furniture Fair asked us two years ago to establish a Best in Show award at their Greenhouse showcase for emerging designers — where we would travel to Sweden and judge in person each of the nearly three dozen designers on show, providing an essential framework for something we were already going to do — we jumped at the chance. And at this year’s fair earlier this winter, we found the thing we’re always searching for at these things: a designer whose work is so sophisticated and ready for the market that they’re bound to be in the conversation for years to come. A booth full of bangers, if you will.

Our Best in Show award this year went to Tobias Berg, a Norwegian designer with one of the most assured debuts we’ve seen in years. But it turned out when we spoke to Berg recently, that this wasn’t, in fact, the first time we’ve seen his work: Berg participated in the last Norwegian Presence exhibition in Milan back in 2023, with Kollen, a slick, ski jump–inspired lounge chair made from bent aluminum sheets, whose central strut peeks through its rear in a ladder-like decorative flourish. His pieces on view in Stockholm mined a similar visual language: two lounge chairs with strict geometric lines, each made from four raw aluminum plates, assembled using slotted joints and screws, and upholstered in either a chic Kvadrat corduroy or a Sahco zebra print; a low, modular aluminum shelf; a solid oak dining chair whose seat and backrest subtly incline; and a walnut armchair whose backrest gently tilts. “For me,” Berg says, “design is about more than just function; it’s about how it makes you feel. In addition to being practical and comfortable, my work needs to be either beautiful or interesting, and preferably both.” Nailed it.

Berg grew up in a family of creatives. His father was an engineer — “and I think that exposure to structure, precision, and problem-solving early on had an impact on how I approach design today,” he says — and his mother excelled at creating a harmonious, beautifully curated space. But Berg never considered design as a professional path until his first year at university. The idea that you could spend your career drawing and making things appealed; an early exposure to the work of designers like Dieter Rams, Gerrit Rietveld, and Shiro Kuramata sealed the deal. Early on, Berg had an inspiring internship at IKEA, where his design for an outdoor system nearly went into production. But when the pandemic hit, he had to press pause on his design career. Luckily for us, a few opportunities within Norway — including the Presence exhibition and a gig designing Norway’s annual booth at ICFF — put him back on the right path.

Berg initially applied to Greenhouse with just one product, but was encouraged by the jurors to submit more, giving him the opportunity to create new works but also to revisit past designs. “I explored different product combinations, sketching and digitally mapping out the stand to see what would work best spatially. In the end, time became both my worst enemy and my best ally — forcing me to make final decisions and turn concepts into tangible prototypes.” It worked in his favor; before the fair even opened, Berg had licensed his designs to Lunnheim, an upstart Norwegian furniture company that had already brought his Kollen chair into the fold.

“I’ve often heard people describe my work as architectural, so I’ve started using the term myself,” says Berg. “I think what they see is a focus on structure, materiality, and balance — something I pay attention to, even if it wasn’t a deliberate goal from the beginning. But more than anything, I want my designs to have a presence in a room, to interact with space in a way that feels natural and intentional.” Judging from the gravitational pull Berg’s designs exerted over a tiny booth in a convention hall outside Stockholm, we’d say he’s on his way.