Sam: 'I didn't know what I wanted, so I just started somewhere.'

From internship to running her own design studio

During her third year, Sam completed an internship at Studio Tjeerd Veenhoven in Groningen, a design studio that works with biobased materials and residual waste streams: natural resources that often end up being discarded. ‘At the studio, we explore how these materials can be reused, for example as insulation material or in noise barriers along motorways.’

One of the projects she worked on involved palm leaves in the United Arab Emirates, in collaboration with a local company and a group of craftswomen. ‘They were already making baskets and rugs from these leaves. We explored how we could develop that further, for example by creating a natural dyeing process and investigating how fibres could be extracted from the leaves and refined.’

Rather than inventing something new, the starting point is what already exists. ‘I found that way of working really interesting. I’m not a chemist, so I don’t know exactly how these materials behave. But that’s precisely what I enjoyed about it. Just using common sense and asking: what do I have here, and what can I do with it?’

After graduating, Sam initially worked in hospitality to create some distance and think about what she wanted to do next. Then she called her internship supervisor. ‘I asked, if I could come back’ The answer was yes, but as a freelancer. ‘That’s when I thought: if I have to register as self-employed anyway, I might as well start my own design studio.’

Now she combines both. Two days a week she works in Groningen, while the rest of the week she focuses on building her own practice and exploring the kind of work she wants to create.

Interior Architecture is about how you see the world

‘People often think it’s about choosing cushions to match a sofa. But it’s really not. It’s about authorship: who you are, how you see the world, and how you translate that into what you create.’ That can take many forms. ‘A space, a piece of furniture, but also a painting, a text or even music. I sing, for example, and for me that’s all about emotion and rhythm. I bring that into the way I design spaces: how someone moves through them, where tension is created and where a sense of calm emerges.’

During her graduation year, Sam worked on several projects. One of them was a spatial installation in a vacant building in Zwolle, which she transformed into a maze built around two opposites. ‘On one side was a dark space for rest, where sound guided you through the environment and helped you disconnect from external stimuli. On the other side was a place where you could run, shout and hit things. Just let everything out.’

This exploration of tension and release also found its way into her graduation project: a scream booth where people can literally release built-up tension. ‘We live in a fairly stressed society. I’m interested in how people move from tension back to relaxation. I wanted people to experience that, not just see it.’

You learn by making

Perhaps the most important lesson Sam learned is that you have to do. ‘You can have all sorts of ideas, but if you don’t make anything, nothing happens. New insights emerge through the process of making. One of my tutors called them “gifts”: things you hadn’t planned for, but that appear while you’re working.’

That also means knowing when to slow yourself down. ‘When you’re making, you shouldn’t overthink things. Otherwise, you hold yourself back. And when you’re thinking, it’s sometimes better to stop making for a moment. I recognise that in myself. Before I start, I can think: this isn’t going to work. But you only know that once you’ve actually tried it.’
 

Experimenting and finding your own direction

After graduating, Sam didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do. At first, she found that unsettling. ‘The programme is so broad and opens up so many possibilities. Right now, I’m exploring what direction feels right for me. Do I want to design furniture? Paint? Write? Or focus more on interior projects?’

In her own studio, she works intuitively. ‘I just start making things, such as paintings or large-scale models. The kind of work that initially makes you wonder: what exactly am I looking at? But the longer you look, the more you discover.’ Through the act of making, she gradually uncovers her own path.

Writing has become part of that process too. During her graduation year, she wrote a text born out of frustration with society and the pressure she experiences. ‘I simply needed to get it out.’ At the last minute, she submitted that work to Dutch Design Week. There, she presented a large part of her graduation projects, including the scream booth, a video installation and a chair. ‘Three days before the deadline, I thought: I’ll just send it in.’ She was selected and went on to present her work at the event. ‘That’s the kind of thing that happens when you simply give it a try.’

You don’t have to know yet

‘A lot of people want a clear list of career options when choosing a degree programme. But it doesn’t really work like that.’ According to Sam, the programme is all about exploration. ‘You’re not pushed in one particular direction. Instead, you discover for yourself what suits you. And that might be something unexpected. After graduating, I suddenly found myself thinking: maybe I want to be a singer. And if that’s what it turns out to be, that’s fine too. But I would never have discovered that without this programme.’

Choosing a degree now doesn’t mean deciding the rest of your life. ‘You’re choosing something for the next few years, but that doesn’t mean you’ll still be doing the same thing twenty years from now.’

Sam is still very much in that process herself. ‘I have my own studio now, but I’m still figuring out what I want to create. I hope I’ll find more direction over time, but I genuinely enjoy the searching itself. I’m someone who gets stressed quite easily, but not about this at all. That tells me everything I need to know. It simply makes me really happy. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about.’

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