Paved States

Paved States, presented by Sixtysix Magazine, transforms a ground-floor showroom at THE MART into a dynamic gallery and retail space during NeoCon. This curated showcase unites emerging artists, designers, and publishers, providing industry professionals and the design community with a platform for collaboration and discovery

Drawing from Chicago’s Brutalist architecture and material innovations, Paved States highlights makers who work with and reinterpret stone, brick, glass, and iron—creating a compelling dialogue between soft and hard, permanent and ephemeral, industrial and artisanal.

Featured Designers

Ia Kutateladze

Ia Kutateladze is Georgian born, Berlin-based designer and artist who studied interior and product design in Florence, Italy. In 2016 Ia relocated to Berlin and founded her independent studio in 2019. Her practice has grown organically, shaped by a deep engagement with diverse materials and the creation of both functional and non-functional sculptural objects.

At the core of Ia’s practice lies an exploration of emotional landscapes, memory, and psychological states, intertwined with the intuitive nature of creativity. Guided by instinct as much as reflection, embracing spontaneity and the open-ended flow of intuition, her approach often resists rigid structures, allowing each piece to evolve naturally through material experimentation. Her recent work focuses on unique pieces at the intersection of art and design using materials such as clay, aluminium, wood, and cement, while continuously seeking new ways to expand her expressive vocabulary.

In 2024 Ia presented her first solo exhibition, “Fruits of Vulnerability,” in Berlin—a milestone that deepened her ongoing exploration of how inner worlds can find resonance in physical form.

Christian Borger

Christian Borger rigorously investigates relationships between material, methods of craft, and manufacturing processes through a hands-on approach. His work is the distilled product of methodology and material research. He graduated from Boston Architectural College in 2018.

Christian is also the founder of Ultra-Light Studio, an industrial object company that explores the inherent beauty found within materials and methods of industrial manufacturing within the context of everyday tools and objects, bringing into question notions of functional beauty and domestic necessity.

Anna Stechschulte

While seeking many avenues of our vibrant world, Anna Stechschulte works to uncover the niche. In this world she acknowledges femininity, playful curiosity, and the human. The relationship between the object and user is the humanity between the two; the object would not exist without the human and similarly would have no function.

According to Anna, a life well designed in a reflection of your own personal identity is a part of life worth enjoying. She says expression of one’s identity is often done outwardly whether worn on the body or the home. Anna is interested in the modern person in these domestic spaces. In our fast paced world, she wishes to foster intentionality and intimacy through craft.

Hanneke Lourens

Born and raised in South Africa, Hanneke Lourens is a California-based furniture designer making contemporary pieces using classic woodworking techniques. She draws endless inspiration from her roots—always weaving the spirit and vibrancy of Africa into her work.

Working from a renovated cow barn in the Northern Californian redwoods, Hanneke makes each item by hand, constantly keeping quality and longevity front of mind.

Noam Nayberg

Naom Atelier

Noam Atelier is a Chicago-based studio specializing in bespoke wood furniture and objects designed and handcrafted by Noam Nayberg. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022, Noam honed his skills through apprenticeship at his former professor’s woodshop and later at an established furniture fabrication shop. Following several years in the industry, Noam launched Noam Atelier to further develop and share his vision for design and furniture-making.

Cody Norman

Cody Norman is a Chicago-based artist, designer, and educator. He currently serves as part-time faculty in the Sculpture and Designed Objects departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He graduated with a BFA from SAIC in 2016 and earned an MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2020. Cody works with both digital and analog fabrication processes to transform recycled and bioplastics into functional art objects. Creating enigmatic forms that feel at once familiar and foreign, Cody’s process physically blurs the line between digital and hand craft.

Ian Alistair Cochran

Ian Alistair Cochran is an artist and designer working in Chicago. His debut into the design world began with the second annual exhibition “In Good Company” hosted by Fernando Mastrangelo Studio, where he made the first piece of resin furniture of his “Plump Series.” Following that exhibition he was awarded a spot on Sight Unseen’s American Designer Hot List 2018.

Ian has exhibited works at WantedDesign Manhattan, ICFF, and Design Miami where his gallery Tuleste Factory won a Best In Show award 2022. He has also received the honor of being in Dwell magazine’s “Dwell 24,” a selection of the most promising creatives and duos, 35 and younger, who are testing the limits of art and design. Ian works with object-making much the way he does in his artistic endeavors—investigating the visual phenomenon of our experiential world in a way that both informs and inspires.

Cara Molitor

Dollyfox Metal Works

Cara Molitor’s career kicked off in the vibrant world of fashion, where she honed her skills as a freelance stylist and store merchandiser following her graduation from Columbia College Chicago. Inspired by her father's success as an engineer, she harbored dreams of carving her path as a self-sustaining businesswoman.

Driven by an eagerness for the next chapter in her career, Cara embarked on a transformative journey into metalwork. A serendipitous opportunity to delve into the trade sparked a fire within her, illuminating her true calling. While her heart remained tethered to the world of fashion, she integrated her lifelong passion into her newfound craft.

With an unyielding commitment to shifting the fabrication industry, Cara infuses her metalwork with a bold and unconventional flair, weaving together elements of texture, pattern, and color. Her designs, often characterized by playful juxtapositions, breathe life into spaces and challenge the notion of what metal can be.

Lorenz Krisai

Lorenz Krisai Architects

Lorenz Krisai is an Austrian architect and designer based in New York City. He grew up in Vienna, Austria, where he studied architecture under Zaha Hadid and Greg Lynn at the University of Applied Arts as well as interior architecture at the École Penninghen in Paris before moving to NYC in 2015.

Lorenz’s interest in design and architecture began in his early childhood. He was influenced by the city of Vienna and the Wiener Werkstätte movement of the early 1900s—a collective of architects, artists, and designers who tore down boundaries between disciplines in the pursuit of functional, elegant design.

Prior to founding Lorenz Krisai Architects, he spent close to 10 years as an associate at the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) New York office where he led projects including BIG’s first South American projects in Ecuador, the Robert Day Sciences Center for Claremont McKenna College, KING Toronto, and the S.Pellegrino Flagship Factory in Italy.

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