A creative practice exploring time, memory, and the relationship between our lived experience and the physical world
Studio Tam is a creative practice exploring the relationship between our lived experience and the physical world through the making of spaces, gatherings, furniture, objects, and ideas.
At the studio’s essence is the belief that within all the ways that we live—or how we might eat, shop, celebrate, reflect, or come together—are threads that can be woven together to instill memory and personal meaning in our greater experience of life.
STUDIO PILLARS
Time is everything, and nothing. I am always thinking about time. Experiences are, inherently, time in itself—a beginning and an end, a container within the duration of our existence. With everything, I am pulling from threads throughout the fabric of time—personal and cultural histories, a story, a memory—to weave them back together again.
Space is both an idea and physical encapsulation, a sense of inhabitation. The walls of a room carry the weight of an impression; the way we carry ourselves through and around them physically mark, within us, our outer worlds through scale and our senses. Space is a manifestation of physical tactility turned inner feeling.
An object may hold a weight in our hands as much as it may hold the weight of its story. In an object’s form is an intention of its creation; perhaps a touchstone to serve a culture or a function. To cultivate an understanding of the way objects live together—and, most significantly, the way we live with them—is an experience in itself, finding reverence and provenance in the simple or sublime.
People are at the heart of all experiences. It takes a village to create one, and people are the reason why we make them: the catalyzing part of the equation to materialize an experience from a space or a moment in time. To explore the many ways we, as people, come together—to shop, eat, rest, celebrate, or simply gather—is to shape the greater experience of our lives.
Services
As a creative practice and consultancy, Studio Tam finds balance in an ecosystem of both self-generated and client projects to exercise these explorations, informing a working style and understanding that is equally human-oriented and business-minded.
Design Research & Experiential Strategy
An excavation of the essence of an experience—or an investigation of the way space, people, and objects might exist and come together—sets the foundation for every project. Developed through research, writing, and strategic frameworks, my work gently pulls apart the threads of place and time to uncover the contextual lens and creative opportunity through which an experience can take form.
Concept Development & Creative Direction
Building upon the foundational strategy established for the experience, a concept—or the soul of an experience—will emerge. By developing the creative vision for the experience, my work establishes the big idea: the narrative journey and programmed elements for the way space, people, and objects will come together visually and sensorially across all scales.
Spatial & Interior Design
Developing the concept through to completion, the heart of creating an experience brings materiality to the creative vision. From spatial planning and fixture design to furniture selection and production oversight, a comprehensive process once beginning with drawings on paper will blossom into atmosphere and feeling—the poetry of space experienced in physical form.
Gatherings & Curation
From the energy of a room, the small details on a table, and the objects that add texture to a space—it’s the assembly of people and objects that make a space a place; a house a home. A conceptual and practical consideration of how a space might be programmed for people or objects to come together through gatherings, exhibition, or curation to bring an experience to life.
Stephanie Tam
Growing up in New York’s Chinatown with reverence for the physical world and the connection to memory and identity, Stephanie has devoted her work to the exploration of the ways space, objects, and people can come together through human experiences.
An intuitive pull towards an examination of the ways we shape and punctuate our existence through the physical world drew her to pursue a BFA in Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she fell in love with the art of making chairs. This appreciation for the sociological aspect of furniture—like how placement in a room or angle of the body might affect behavior and interaction—extended into space, and evolved into a practice of creating experiences that require a consideration of these details to successfully bring people together.
Prior to the formation of her studio, Stephanie has worked for heritage design companies and direct-to-consumer startups alike to engage their audiences through the strategy, design, and production of brand concepts, retail spaces, and a plethora of events. Notably, she has held in-house roles at Everlane, where she shaped the formation of the brand’s experiential ecosystem and its first foray into physical retail. She has also worked within the team at Vitsoe, where she learned the true meaning of systems-thinking in living, while developing design-minded, editorial programming through the brand’s New York storefront space. Stephanie is based in Los Angeles but hails from New York (and is there often). Aside from whiling away with projects at home, she also finds home in the worlds of art, architecture, time over wine, and the conviviality of a good dinner party.
Contact
For project inquiries, collaborations, or ideas, I’d love to hear. Send a note to set up an introductory conversation.