Arts Thread

Annabelle is an award-winning, Swiss born / New York based, dual spatial designer and strategist with an accomplished background in branding and spatial installations - in virtual and physical space. She owns a graduate degree in Design Management, and an AAS and MFA in Interior Design from Parsons, New York. Her career started early on with event productions for music festivals and brands. For the next 7 years, she was developing global brand strategies, while with time her focus shifted towards the design of the physical and virtual spaces we are inhabiting and the stories we create within those realms.   Today, Annabelle is an educator at Parsons where she teaches Interior Design Studios and classes about the future of retail and inclusive spaces. Further, she debuted her first solo exhibition for NYCxDesign in May 2023: An immersive experience and performance between physical and virtual sheets. Aiming to mesh technology and tactile materials more critically and humanely to improve mental wellbeing, while considering the bed as the only place in the we call “home” in the near future.  Annabelle runs her own studio and works at the intersection of art and spatial designs. Driven by choreographing user journeys throughout spaces, she believes social behavior and change stand in constant dialogue with good design. In this sense she relates to spatial concepts of interior futures and uses design as a medium and speculation that fosters forward-thinking ideas of how we can improve everyday life. Her designs are research-based, speculative and immersive. Annabelle investigates the historical, material and social forces that shape the discipline of design today and in the future with the goal to improve the sense of comfort, belonging and wellbeing. Whether designing for a client or developing self – initiated projects, the studio applies the same rigorous attention to context, processes and details. Annabelle’s analytical nature translates into immersive, multisensorial visual outcomes, products and strategies tied to the experiential stories of spaces. Her methods challenge the conventional approach to materials and struc­tures. She draws on her ongoing fascination with ephemeral interiors, fashion and wear­able- or visually immersive technology, to ad­vance her work and collaborations with indus­try and institutions and build environments that stir dialogue and moments to explore, play and reflect. A series of art directed movies for a project at complexcon (2018), followed by a first virtual retail space design for instagram brand coffee n'clothes (2018), as well as earlier engagements at the montreux jazz festival, stirred her interest in performances, culture, fashion and arts and triggered her curiosity to explore thresholds and spaces of in-betweens.She conceptualized and designed virtual spac­es for clients such as Kartell and Laufen (2021). And composed physical, global installations at fairs and events from Salone del Mobile to Art Basel for brands such as Vitra or Laufen. An­nabelle also designed restaurants and hotels with Goodrich New York and worked with Dan­iel Arsham and Snarkitecture on projects like KITH, and conceptualized pop-ups for COS or Twilight. Later, she designed several performative fash­ion runways together with Eyesight Group. In summer 2022, she re-designed and produced the comfort zone at the Gurtenfestival - one of Switzerland largest music festivals. In fall 2022, she collaborated with Switzerland Tourism on a art and culture movie produced by UK-based artist and poet Julian Knxx. “In a Dream we are at once beautiful” was first shown in New York, and later at Art Basel in Switzerland.