Tinkering With Modernism

With many celebrated New York projects under its belt, the lighting, furniture, and interior design studio Workstead sets its sights on the South.

- Mikki Brammer

It was perhaps a subconscious nod to her own creative leanings, but Stefanie Brechbuehler long had the feeling that she would end up with an architect.

Born in Switzerland and raised in Venezuela and the United States, she set out on a career path in design early, completing her bachelor’s in interior architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), before heading to RISD to do her master’s in architecture. It was there that she met two people in particular—one with whom she became “practically attached at the hip,” as she puts it, and the other who became her husband. Together, the trio would eventually form the design studio Workstead, which has applied its refined yet expressive minimalism to some of New York’s hippest hospitality and residential spaces.

Brechbuehler and Ryan Mahoney had been walking parallel paths for years— he too was born in Switzerland and studied at SAIC before going to RISD. When they met on the first day of grad school, they struck up an instant friendship. “People thought we were dating because we were always together,” Brechbuehler says. In fact, they weren’t. Instead it was a student from North Carolina two years behind them, whom they met right before graduation, who eventually caught Brechbuehler’s eye.