Matthias Pliessnig is a furniture designer based in Brooklyn, New York, whose work uses steam bent wood. His style is “kinetically contemporary” and he uses “computer-aided curves with laborious craftsmanship” to handcraft chairs and benches. Pliessnig is a graduate of RISD and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His interest in woodworking developed after he decided to build a boat and was inspired to apply those techniques, particularly steam bending of wood strips around a mould, to furniture making. The New York Times reported that his studio “looks more akin to a boat-builder’s garage . . .