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Hazel Villena

@makerhazel

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exploring form 🪅
[email protected]
BK NY

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SS-1 / Interlock Stool

An exploration in using stainless steel as both structure and visual language. This first iteration relies on interlocking slots, material rigidity, and plate thickness to hold itself together without hardware or welding.

The seat inserts at a 45-degree angle, then rotates into place where the tolerances and weight of the steel secure the assembly.

I was interested in creating a continuous silhouette that hugs and anchors the seat, allowing the structure and form to resolve as a single gesture. Very happy of how this one turned out!

#stainlesssteel #metalwork #designwanted #designer #objectdesign by @makerhazel

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5 months ago

Bean Lamp when off duty ⚪️

#design #objectdesign #designwanted by @makerhazel

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6 months ago

SS-1 Interlock Stool: Doing some exploration into a hardware-free slot stool assembled through interlocking stainless steel parts and friction-fit connections. Testing how the weight and rigidity of the steel can help hold the structure together without welding or fasteners ✖️

#furnituredesign #nycdesigner #designwanted #stainless_steel #designprocess by @makerhazel

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5 months ago

What does a Latin designer’s work need to look like to be considered “Latin”? 🤔

For Peruvian-born, Brooklyn-based designer Hazel Villena, the answer isn’t so simple.

At Wanted Design during New York Design Week, Villena unveiled the Bean Lamp — an object that feels part creature, part machine. 👽✨ A cast-metal body supports a soft, matte disc of light, while its legs act less like a base and more like a stance. As she puts it: “It is designed to hold its own character before it does its job.”

Despite New York’s reputation as an open-minded creative hub, Villena says there’s still a subtle expectation placed on Latin designers.

“There’s an increasing expectation that work by Latin designers should look visibly Latin,” she explains. Bright colours, familiar motifs, traditional materials — if those references aren’t immediately present, designers can find themselves labelled as “not Latin enough” or drawn into conversations that focus more on identity than the object itself.

Yet Villena approaches the issue with remarkable clarity. The challenge, she says, is often less cultural than structural. As an independent designer funding her own production without institutional backing, she faces the same realities as many emerging creatives today.

💡 “Latin designers have been shaping global design for a long time,” she says. “The shift isn’t that we’re new, but how we are being incorporated into the global discourse.”

Her background informs how she thinks and creates, even when it isn’t explicitly visible in the final object.

And perhaps that’s what makes the Bean Lamp so compelling. It isn’t trying to perform an identity. It simply exists on its own terms.

“What feels encouraging,” Villena says, “is that work like the Bean Lamp is increasingly being read on its concept and craft first, with the designer’s background as part of how the work is understood rather than how it’s introduced.”

✨ A small shift, maybe. But an important one!

Photos and videos by Hazel Villena @makerhazel

#lamp #lightingdesign #latindesigner #newyork #nycxdesign @wanteddesign taken in New York, New York by @makerhazel

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4 months ago

It’s been a week since my last day at NYCxDesign, and I’ve been reflecting on how it all unfolded.

After being at @icff_official and @lichennyc with many talented designers, it was fulfilling to share the work, have conversations with designers, friends, strangers, and curious minds, and see how people interpreted the pieces in front of them. Even the quiet moments, watching people interact from afar or up close, felt special.

Grateful to everyone who came by and excited to keep exploring and materilizing the inside of my brain!

#design #nycxdesign #nycdesigner taken in New York City by @makerhazel

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4 months ago

This year I was selected to be part of @wanteddesign Launchpad at ICFF! I will be showing the Bean Lamp May 17 - 19💥💥💥 catch me if you’re around! (W73) @icff_official

#nycdesigner #icff #objectdesign #designexhibition by @makerhazel

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5 months ago

It’s alive!

The Bean Lamp is a small, engineered figure made to be questioned. Is it a creature? A machine? Inanimate or bound to crawl?

Happy to finally share this one

#design #objectdesign #lighting #designwanted by @makerhazel

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6 months ago

Lighten up! Bean Lamp coming soon.💡
Join the waitlist. taken in New York City by @makerhazel

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2 years ago

encounter at docking station by @makerhazel

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4 years ago

Short travel space pod by @makerhazel

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4 years ago

Bionic brain #biodevices
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#3dart #modeling #model3d #3dmodeling #artist #futuristic #cyberpunk #design #3ddesign #render #keyshot #architecture #3drender #nftcommunity #nft #nftcollector by @makerhazel

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a tubular to take humans to ______? by @makerhazel

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