Katrin Mueller-Russo

Biography

Dipl.-Des. Industrial Design, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, Germany

Katrin’s career is diverse; she has practiced with Hoberman Associates as a design director working on the Hoberman Sphere toy line, on various educational applications; and as a consultant collaborating on foldable products for a major children‘s product manufacturer. Katrin has also worked with Ronnette Riley Architect, where she gained experience working on public buildings and interior design renovations and has served as a material consultant for the first sustainable daycare center in Williamsburg, New York.

In 1997, she founded Specific Objects Inc., an interdisciplinary, sustainability oriented design practice in New York. Her design experience and collaboration with her partner Rhett Russo allow her to combine product design and architectural services as part of an integrated design approach. Her firm has designed a fair booth for Hamilton watches as part of the Swatch environment in Basel, Switzerland; and a series of commemorative objects for the MoMA store to sell in conjunction with the PS1 Young Architects Program and RuyKlein’s Knot Garden. Katrin also curated an exhibition at Material ConneXion on ecological products entitled ‘Glamorous Green.’

She has taught at Parsons School of Design, University of the Arts, Pratt Institute and since 2008 the Contemporary Furniture Design course at PennDesign. Her work as been exhibited internationally and her awards include the Ideas Competition Design Plus at the Frankfurt International Fair Ambiente for her hearing aid design. In 2007, her prototype for the design of the Flabella table was part of a furniture exhibit at Project 4 Gallery in Washington, DC. With her partner, she was chosen as a finalist for the Newark Visitors Center competition in 2009. Katrin is currently researching and prototyping textile based applications for earthenware and furniture and will be a resident at the European Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc) in the Netherlands in 2011.