Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis, who was yesterday named designer of the year at this year’s Dezeen Awards, talks about the difficulties facing emerging designers in this interview.
Marcelis, who is known for her work in resin and stone, began her career after studying industrial design in Wellington, New Zealand, before doing a degree at Design Academy Eindhoven. After graduating in 2011, she quickly decided she wanted to work for herself.
“I decided I don’t want to work for anyone; I was like ‘I’ll just start my own studio,'” she told Dezeen.
I wanted to do my own thing, and I was lucky enough to get a very cheap studio and an equally cheap house, so I wasn’t under so much pressure to do work that brought in money to pay for my living expenses,” she added. “I was just doing things like babysitting and bar work.”
“I really feel for young designers now”
Marcelis knows how lucky she was to be starting at a time when this was possible, and doesn’t believe that would be the case today.
“I really feel for young designers now, because straightaway, you have crazy high living costs,” she said.
“I got very lucky in this moment where I was able to experiment and do whatever; it didn’t matter whether there was a market for what I was doing or if anyone was interested in it. I uncompromisingly did my own thing.”
A job for a big fashion house, which Marcelis said she can’t name, led her to design the ‘candy cubes’ for which she has become known. The pale-pastel-coloured tables are instantly recognisable and have been used in numerous interior projects.
But though it’s what people often associate her with, resin pieces make up just a third of her studio’s projects.
“Two-thirds is glass,” Marcelis said. “Both materials have the ability to become so many different things – their properties can be the whole spectrum of completely transparent and glossy to completely opaque and matte and everything in between.”
“I’m interested in how certain materials can have interactions with light and how you activate and use the natural surroundings, like sunlight, with a combination of materials,” she added.
She believes that her extensive work with resin has meant that she can have an impact on the sustainability of the material.
“We buy resin from a supplier and the more projects we do, the more voice we have about whether they’re going to put more bio percentage in the resin,” she explained.
“Because we’ve been working with them for quite some time, we’ve been able to push them to get the non-virgin percentage of the resin to almost 60 per cent.”
Designers need to be “extremely aware” of sustainability issues
To Marcelis, when it comes to sustainability it’s important that designers do the research and have all the information they need.
“The main thing to do as a designer is to be as well informed as possible, to be able to make the right decisions depending on which market you’re working in and what the application and desired lifeline of a project is,” she said.
Her clients have also become more interested in sustainability issues, she added.
“Not that long ago, no one gave a shit at all,” Marcelis said. “But we all have a responsibility and I think we need to be extremely aware of it and not just frivolously design new chairs every year.”
Marcelis is becoming one of the best-known female designers working today and has worked on everything from a conceptual Renault car to IKEA products, but she says the design industry can still be harder to break into for women.
“It’s so tricky because I feel like a lot of bigger brands are a bit stuck in their ways,” she said.”They’ve worked with a lot of big-name males for many years, they like that relationship and they carry on that relationship.”
However, she believes that this is also because brands aren’t open enough to working with emerging designers in general.
“I almost feel like it’s a dual conversation that’s not just gender but also age, because there’s not a lot of opportunities for new designers coming into the field,” she said.
“And I think that’s really a mistake because new brains; new ideas – the doors should be much more open for that.”
AlUla project “was really about empowerment”
For this year’s Milan design week, Marcelis had originally planned to take a step back after doing a number of big projects in previous years, including an installation with Solid Nature in 2023.
But she got asked, together with her partner, architect Paul Cournet, to create an installation for the AlUla design space.
The result was a lounge space with a soft overhead light, which featured sculptural chairs by French designer Leo Orta and a large sofa by design studio Hall Haus that created a desert-like landscape.
The space also showcased pieces that were made during a design residency at AlUla by other designers.
“The fact that it was more about cinematography and creating a stage for other designers was really attractive to me,” Marcelis said.
“[I was] still doing something very creative and being able to set a mood, but it wasn’t so much ‘look at me’, it was more ‘look at these other designs’.”
AlUla is one of Saudi Arabia’s 14 giga projects, developed as part of crown prince Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to transform the country.
The country has been criticised for its record on human rights, especially in connection with another of the giga projects, Neom.
But Marcelis believes that projects like AlUla can be an opportunity for change.
“What was really pleasantly surprising is that it’s not one of those projects where it’s about bringing Western designers and lumping them in this foreign country, taking elements and then that’s it,” she said.
The whole AlUla design space is very much about developing a culture of design within the region and having local craftsmen involved,” she added. “So the whole project was really about empowerment.”
“I think it’s the wrong way to go around something where, yes, there are some not-great things about political policies – but then I don’t know if it’s the right way to go about it to completely put off any opportunities to change, because I feel like projects like this are an opportunity for change.”
“I want to be 100 per cent involved”
Another recent project, VitraHaus loft, saw Marcelis design an interior for furniture brand Vitra’s Herzog & de Meuron-designed flagship store in Weil am Rhein, Germany.
However, she doesn’t plan to focus on doing more interior projects in the future.
“I don’t want to do more interiors – I love being the person that goes in and out of architectural projects,” she explained. “Like with OMA, when they did the KaDeWe in Berlin, I come in to do the entrance and then I leave again; that’s my strength.”
“With Vitra, it was an interesting challenge because it’s so different to what I normally do and how I work.”
Her eight-person studio is also currently exploring smart-material technology designs and kinetic designs, such as her recent work for Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.
“I want to be 100 per cent involved in every single project,” Marcelis concluded.
I don’t have any desire to become a brand or a studio where things leave the building without me ever having looked at it. It’s my name, and I think it’s very important that it’s also then my ideas.”
The photography is Nacho Alegre, BD Barcelona.
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