The Jesse Desk

SF Design Week Award Winner for FashTech

The 2022 San Francisco Design Week Awards is an international design competition celebrating exemplary work in many fields of design. While this is the third year in a row that FENNIE+MEHL was recognized for interior work with Forerunner Ventures, the studio also won for something completely different: wearable design. 

F+M worked with One Hat One Hand, an award-winning design and fabrication studio in San Francisco, to imagine and build a mobile, functional, and fashionable desk for students grappling with unique challenges brought about by the pandemic. Inspired by the son of F+M’s office manager, the Jesse Desk gives students a work surface for traditional writing but reveals a tablet for connected online classroom lessons through an integrated QR code. The work surface that began life as a sturdy and immovable vintage school desk now has the freedom to be carried home as a backpack. 

This design was originally created for and auctioned as part of Chairity 2021 to support Bay Area nonprofits. Since 2017, creative volunteers have given new life and purpose to old chairs, and then auctioned off their designs to raise more than $355,000 for Bay Area community initiatives dedicated to change. Judges honor truly transformed pieces, with points given for unique design that pushes the envelope yet still remains useful. 

Photography: FENNIE+MEHL