Sabine Marcelis

Product design

Even before graduating from the DAE, Dutch/New Zealand designer Sabine Marcelis was fascinated by changing opacity of surfaces – it is a theme she has continued with.

By Gabrielle Kennedy / 07-06-2012

Sabine Marcelis shone at last year’s Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show with HOUSEWINE – an all-in-one home-brew installation, which celebrates the process of wine-making by bringing it into our living space.

Her other project was a table that can be used both as a workbench and a dining room piece by changing the opacity of the top glass. “It can be transparent or opaque and works using an electric current that alters the particles in the glass,” Marcelis explains. “It is a great way to keep private and public separate.”

HOUSEWINE has enjoyed a lot of success, being shown and exhibited in workshops and exhibitions across Europe. Currently it is a part of the Dutch Design: Huis van Oranje in Germany.

“It is a fascinating exhibition because it is broken up into themes depending on how the rooms were originally used,” Marcelis says. “HOUSEWINE was put in the Gentleman’s room I guess because making and drinking alcohol was considered a manly activity.”

The materials used in the piece also match nicely with the setting - cork, oak, brass and laboratory glass.

“I like it because even though it all seems posh and regal it shows a great diversity of Dutch design from new graduates like myself to big names from older generations,” she says.

Marcelis has also opened a new studio in Rotterdam called Studio Like This with Miya Kondo. Together they exhibited TIME earlier this year in Milan.

“A space should not be defined by time,” Marcelis explains. Put off by big clocks that make inhabitants of a room always conscious of time, she made the piece so that it can only be read from one very specific angle – at other times it simply looks decorative.

“It is a visual trick,” says Marcelis. “At ninety degrees you can see into it, but either side you can’t, which means you really have to seek out the time.”

Next up for Marcelis and Kondo is to rebrand the visual identity of a local Rotterdam public school. “We won the grant from the Rotterdam City Council,” Marcelis says. “We will spend the summer doing this because the school is really run down and we thought it needed a bit of love.”

Images: small from top HOUSEWINE, opaque and transparent table, TIME.