Chris Schanck likens his elaborately carved and lustrously hued furniture to a child’s rocket-shaped bed: “The practical function of that bed takes the form of a fantasy,” the Detroit-based designer says. “We understand that you can’t start the bed and fly away, but in the child it inspires ideas of speed and exploration.” Credit his signature fabrication process, called Alufoil, in which artisans burnish thin pieces of aluminum foil to the furniture’s structural armatures built from steel and foam insulation and encased in a coat of clear resin like insects in bits of amber. The results evoke coral reefs, extraterrestrial worlds, and artifacts from ancient civilizations in equal measure, carving an alternative universe that’s distinctly his own.

Photography by Jenna Bascom