THE FAMILY / Mandy Stehouwer

 

Raised in Cadillac, Michigan, MANDY STEHOUWER's creativity and passion for art and design lead her to the Cleveland Institute of Art. After winning the IDSA National Student Merit Award, she graduated with a BFA in industrial design and joined Continuum, a global design consultancy headquartered in Boston. Her multi-disciplinary skill set gives her the opportunity to design products, environments, and experiences in a variety of industries. Mandy's inspiration comes from objects with an interesting history, such as old industrial parts from factories and antiques from mid-century homes. She enjoys refurbishing and up-cycling them into unconventional applications giving them a second life with new meaning. As Mandy spends a lot of her time working with space on a large scale, the opportunity to scale down her everyday workspace served as the inspiration for the "Dollhaus" design for ACME. We tend to think of dollhouses as children's toys, but in their earlier history, they were filled with miniature household items and were solely the playthings of adults. This pen captures the vibrant, collaborative activities in the day-to-day working life of Continuum's design studio. Coincidentally, Continuum’s West Coast office, is housed in the original Eames Office, whom ACME has also worked with for many years.