Sabine Marcelis

Sabine Marcelis studied at Design Academy Eindhoven and Victoria University of Wellington. The field of work recorded is product design and industrial design. Places of work recorded in the authority are Rotterdam. Residence is recorded at Rotterdam and New Zealand. Works named in the authority record are Candy Cube, Merging Blocks, No Fear Of Glass, Panorama and Yōkan. Work by Sabine Marcelis is recorded in the collections of Art Gallery of South Australia, Centraal Museum, Collection Vedute, Design Museum Gent and High Museum of Art. Distinctions recorded are Talent Development Grant Scheme, Harrie Tillieprijs, GQ Men of the Year Awards and Wallpaper* Designer of the Year.

• Name — Sabine Marcelis • Born — 1985 • Birthplace — Alkmaar, Netherlands • Education — * Victoria University of Wellington • Design Academy Eindhoven • Occupation — * Artist • Designer • Organization — Studio Sabine Marcelis • Partner — Paul Cournet • Children — 2 • Website — https: sabinemarcelis.com/

Marcelis was born in Alkmaar, Netherlands. She emigrated to Waihi, New Zealand, with her family at the age of 10. She studied industrial design at Victoria University of Wellington before returning to Holland in her early twenties to study at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Before pursuing a career in design, Marcelis competed in semi-professional snowboarding.

After graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2011, she founded Studio Sabine Marcelis in Rotterdam, where she lives and works. Her studio has worked with companies such as Apple, Audi, Bulgari, Cartier, Céline, IKEA, Fendi, LVMH, Isabel Marant, Stella McCartney, and Renault.

Marcelis has designed furniture, lighting, packaging, and accessories for brands such as Acerbis Design, Arco, BD Barcelona, cc-tapis, Calico Wallpaper, Established & Sons, Iittala, La Prairie (brand), Mathmos, Natuzzi, and the Swedish furniture brand Hem. In 2022 she designed a collection of lamps and homewares for Ikea which included "a vase, champagne coupes... glasses, glass drink stirrers and carafes, donut-shaped glass bowls... paper napkins and low pile rugs... glass shelves and trays as well as coffee tables that mimic the designer's popular Candy Cubes." In 2026 she revisited the "now-iconic lamp" from the original Varmblixt (warm light) collection, reimagining it as a high-tech, dimmable, variable colour smart version of the "cult" light (the original design was also reintroduced and will remain in the company's catalogue). In 2024, the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam commissioned Marcelis to design a new piece. The result is an industrially manufactured brushed aluminium stacking chair called the Stedelijk Chair. A powder coated version of the piece in various colours was released in 2025.

In 2019, Marcelis was invited by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation to participate in its Interventions programme, a series of temporary installations in the Barcelona Pavilion which has featured artists and architects such as Ai Weiwei, Enric MIralles, and Ryue Nishizawa. Her contribution was a group of pieces titled "No Fear of Glass", a play on Josep Quetglas Riusech's 2001 book about the building "Fear of Glass". She produced a temporary installation titled "Swivel" in St Giles Square in London for the 2022 London Design Festival. In 2022, the Vitra Design Museum staged "Colour Rush! An Installation by Sabine Marcelis" in which she reorganised the approximately 400 pieces held in the Schaudepot exhibition warehouse collection by colour. • Illustration — Stacked water fountain for Solid Nature, Vondelpark, Amsterdam (2024) In 2024, the High Museum of Art added Marcelis's Panorama to a decade-long series of monumental outdoor art installations. The kinetic work, a composition of four large, rotating red and orange mirrored glass columns, "traverses the boundary between art and design". According to the museum, it is "the designer's first monumental and kinetic work". Other artists who have contributed to the series, which is staged on the Woodruff Arts Center's Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza, include Tanya Aguiñiga, Ignacio Cadena, Héctor Esrawe, Jaime Hayon, Bryony Roberts, and Yuri Suzuki. Also in 2024, she designed Stacked, an abstract sculptural water fountain for Amsterdam's Vondelpark. Her 2025 installation for Apple, which combines both an exhibition in the Apple Park Observatory galley that includes "prismatic polyester resin, frosted coloured glass, and clear acrylic" colour studies, as well as the addition of a mirrored obelisk like public sculpture in Apple Park, was called "Apple's most Instagrammable new launch" by Wallpaper* magazine. • Illustration — Continuum, Kunsthal, Rotterdam (2026) In 2026 the Kunsthal Rotterdam added Marcelis's intervention to its Rem Koolhaas / OMA designed building, a work titled Continuum, which is part of the museum's Kunsthal Inside/Out programme. The initiative "invites designers to create a site-specific work that can be experienced both inside and outside of the building."

Her partner is the architect Paul Cournet. They have a son who was born during the Covid pandemic. Marcelis observed that her piece called "Boa", a torus shaped pouf, is "helping him learn how to walk. And it's also a perfect spot to safely place him if I have to quickly leave the room." They also have a daughter, who was born in 2024.

At the age of 16, Marcelis was an avid snowboarder. In an interview with Surface magazine, she states that her use of snowboarding goggles made her realize the powerful effect colour has on one's environment. This helped her develop her work titled "Colour Rush" which was released in May 2022 at the Vitra Design Museum. Specifically, Marcelis also stated that her inspiration stems from the architect Hans Hollein for his works with not only architecture but also his work with jewelry.