Collection: Designers: Steven Haulenbeek

Steven Haulenbeek is an American artist and designer based in Chicago. His work is produced through rigorous material and process experimentation, resulting in unique objects and furniture.

Originally from Kalamazoo, he attended Hope College, Michigan, receiving a bachelor’s degree in drawing and sculpture. Living and working in the Holland/Grand Rapids area, a hotbed of American design and furniture manufacturing, became a powerful influence. While developing as a sculptor, he fell in love with mid-century designers like Charles and Ray Eames’, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia.

In 2010, he began his independent practice, Steven Haulenbeek Design Concepts.

In 2011, he developed his first Ice-Cast Bronze objects formed by pouring wax patterns for bronze casting directly into the relentless Chicago winter ice. In 2016, he launched the Resin-Bonded Sand series, another unique fabrication process that renders foundry sand into otherworldly sculptural furniture and objects. Though his work runs the gamut of scale, material, and process, they all exhibit a similar approach to material and aesthetic austerity through a hands-on, experimental prototyping style.