The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) convened in New York’s Javits Center in May as it has for 22 years, and we dutifully walked the floor, peering into all (okay, most) of the 550 booths. A thousand chairs later, we came upon Houston-based designer D. E. Sellers whose furniture is simple—not minimalist in the modernist sense, but simple as in functionally pure. His chairs come as flat panels. The maple-veneered, plywood components are laser-scored for easy detachment and assembly without any hardware.

Sellers is motivated by the humanitarian goal of supplying schools in disadvantaged countries with inexpensive, but thoughtfully designed, desks and chairs. He offers his open-source designs to anyone involved in a humanitarian-aid organization. Anyone in any circumstance would love the eDesk, and we do.