If you walk through the kids’ furniture section of a Target or Walmart, you’ll get a glimpse into what adults think children like: pink for girls, blue for boys, a parade of cartoon bunnies and Disney princesses emblazoned on bed frames and step stools.

But do kids actually want all this? Or have we simply stereotyped them? Hanne Willmann suspects we underestimate children’s ability to appreciate clean, minimalist design. The Berlin-based industrial designer and founder of Studio Hanne Willmann has spent a decade making products for grown-ups: chairs and sofas for Freifrau, tables for Favius, lighting for Hartô Designs. Today, in an interesting twist, Willmann takes on the role of chief design officer for Piccalio, a six-year-old Los Angeles furniture startup.

Willmann’s new collection for Piccalio—a table and chair set made of carved wood—reflects her approach to designing for children. The pieces, which are inspired by a 1970s Swiss chair, blend the simplicity of wood with interesting curves. Willmann believes they will appeal to both parents and children, who will cultivate a taste for good design.

There’s a long history of European designers bringing their skills to children’s furniture. Alma Siedhoff-Buscher designed a suite of children’s furniture for a model house in a 1923 Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, Germany, where every piece was multipurpose: a dresser cabinet became a puppet theater, a changing table became a writing desk.

In the 1930s, the Finnish designer Alvar Aalto designed a children’s version of his famous three-legged Artek stool , and it has been part of Scandinavian schools and nurseries for generations.

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