Sabine Marcelis in her Rotterdam studio with a prototype custom light installation for the new Galeries Lafayette in Annecy, France © Chris Brooks
Sabine Marcelis In her Rotterdam studio and workshop, Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis’s approach to materials continues to be influenced by her engineer father. “He worked in these crazy factories and would come home and tell my sister and I about the machines as he showed us photos of a screw being produced or whatever,” she recalls. “I always found it super-interesting: understanding how existing processes can be used in new, unexpected ways and how material properties can be manipulated. I just keep exploring.”
Sabine Marcelis in her studio in Rotterdam © Chris Brooks
One of her signature materials is resin, which is cast into tables or stools then intensely polished to create a finish that appears to glow from within. Her multipurpose Candy Cubes (from $4,424, mattermatters.com) are a mainstay, produced in saccharine shades such as candy-floss pink – the colour chosen by the Vitra Design Museum for the version that is now part of its permanent collection.
Totem Light 2019 by Studio Sabine Marcelis © Pim Top
Marcelis also focuses on glass, which is fashioned into iridescent tables and mirrors, the latter in foiled ombre effects and colour-block designs that she creates in collaboration with fellow Rotterdam designer Brit van Nerven. In May, she will open a site-specific installation at the new Galeries Lafayette store in Annecy – including a huge yellow-toned mirror – while a still-to-be-revealed collection for Ikea launches in October. sabinemarcelis.com
