Emerging Design

Sixtysix Magazine and Haworth will host an exclusive cocktail reception celebrating the Paved States exhibition at NeoCon in The Mart.

This emerging designer gallery showcase pays homage to Chicago's brutalist architectural heritage while featuring remarkable works from rising talents including Ia Kutateladze, Hanneke Lorens, Noam Atelier, Anna Stechschulte, Ian Cochran, Cody Norman, Dolly Fox, Lourenz Krassai, and more.

A former video game designer turned metalsmith, Secret of Mana built his practice transforming pop culture references into experimental wearable art. At Paved States, he walks you through his design process from concept to material selection then guides you in creating your own piece. Each participant will be custom molded on-site and leave fitted for a one-of-a-kind silver tooth cap, handcrafted with Secret of Mana and delivered after the event.

In this hands-on leather wallet workshop, Noel guides participants through hand-stitching and stamping on pre-cut leather patterns. Each attendee will construct their own custom wallet or cardholder, personalizing it with custom letter and number stamps: initials, names, whatever feels right, while drawing on Noel's distinctive approach to craft and cultural storytelling.

In this hands-on workshop, participants explore the fundamentals of custom floral design guided by the founders of Nerine. Each attendee will compose their own arrangement to take home in a silver vessel, while learning how flora, form, and texture function as design elements in everyday spaces.

Ceren Arslan is a spatial designer and an architect based in New York City. She is the founder of EXIT, a creative project that focuses on architecture, interior design and spatial design through a multidisciplinary lens both in physical and digital forms. Previously trained in the studios of Kelly Wearstler, KPF and SHoP Architects, she currently works as a designer at the renowned creative agency Bureau Betak where she contributes to large-scale productions across fashion, art and music.

Los hermanos Guillermo y Alaide Alejandre viven y trabajan en la Ciudad de México. Su obra abarca desde pequeños objetos cotidianos hasta proyectos arquitectónicos y diseño de interiores. Han trabajado con Herman Miller desde el año 2019, Savvy Studio 2016, Esrawe Studio 2015 y PLDO 2016, contribuyendo con numerosos diseños de habitáculos y manteniéndose activos en diversas colecciones de mobiliario para oficina y hogar. 

Hank Beyer and Alex Sizemore are based in San Francisco and have worked collaboratively since 2017 as an object creation studio with a focus on furniture, product, and sculpture across various mediums. The designers met while studying at the University of Cincinnati, and have since produced a diverse body of work spanning furniture, lighting, homewares, collectible design, art, and technology. Their projects often involve reimagining industrial materials and processes and applying them to domestic objects.

Hannah Bigeleisen designs sculptural furniture and lighting in Brooklyn, NY. Her designs are guided by her background in sculpture to create an elegant, yet playful approach. Bigeleisen's rich understanding of material, form, color and texture leads itself to collections that are highly crafted and designed for a lifetime of joy and inspiration.

Designer-artist, editor and curator, Jean-Michel Gadoua has earned a reputation as an aesthetic and stylistic leader in the world of contemporary design. The designer by trade began his career in graphic design and music. A fixture of the Montreal experimental music scene in the 2000s, he was artistic director of record label Le Son 666.

Kiki Goti is a Greek designer, architect and educator currently based in New York City. As a maker, Goti hybridizes materials and fabrication methods to explore relationships between materiality, heritage, and identity. Her creative scope spans furniture, public sculptures, and interior design, where she critically engages with notions of femininity, beauty, and ornamentation, offering innovative interpretations of art historical themes.

Lauren Goodman is the lead designer and founder of studio Lauren Goodman, a sculptural furniture studio creating innovative works at the intersection of art and design. Lauren's process is deeply rooted in the landscape, exploring the relationship between material and place. Utilizing found objects and materials sourced from regional waste streams, each piece emerges through a continuous dialogue with her surrounding environment.

Madeline Isakson transforms found objects and materials through emerging and traditional fabrication techniques to explore consumer culture. Ubiquitous, mass-produced items we encounter daily are recontextualized and distorted until they become visible again in a new light, a new form that retains the blurry outlines of cultural memory. Driven by an interest in process and material, her work spans a range of collectible design objects, from lighting and furniture to purely sculptural pieces.

Malcolm Majer (b. Chicago, IL 1983) combines carefully crafted forms, using the formal language of sculptural minimalism to create furniture and objects that challenge textbook concepts of functional design. Malcolm received his BFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and in 2007 established an architectural metal fabrication business in Baltimore, MD, that he continues to manage and operate while engaging in his own studio practice. 

marmar studio is a furniture and object design practice centered on cultivating endearment to the inanimate. By refining forms to their essentials, marmar creates pieces that align utility and character, where the act of use becomes an expression of personality. The studio's ethos is to craft playful, beautiful objects that come alive.

Stefano Giacomello is a Swiss-Italian designer and digital artist, known online as stefo_rotolo and the founder of Studio Rotolo. His practice draws from the iconic designs and architecture of the 70s and 80s, with a special nod to Italian design, balancing clean lines with audacious, sculptural forms. 

Studio AHEAD is a San Francisco-based art and design collective founded by Homan Rajai and Elena Dendiberia. The studio's approach is "borderless" in that its roots are far-flung yet deeply embedded in regionality. Drawing from diasporic experiences, the founders believe strongly that there is no universal idea of functionality that fits all cultures and people. What remains constant is an appreciation of tradition and craftsmanship.

Zac Benloulou of Pavilion Audio Systems is a designer of bespoke sound systems that merge acoustic performance with a considered approach to space, form, and material. Drawing on a dedicated technical understanding of sound reproduction, his practice approaches audio equipment as a form of architecture, designed to complement and define the environments it inhabits.