Robyn Sonntag

Profile

Robyn Sonntag is a Swiss-based designer working across spatial design, product design and design research. Through hands-on material experimentation, conceptual research and visual storytelling, she explores the intersections of design, environment and industry, and the relationships between people, the spaces they inhabit and the systems that shape them.

She works between digital and analogue methods, from sketching and form studies to modelling, prototyping and full-scale execution. Her work is functional, yet it aims to invite people to think differently about how we coexist with our surroundings.

Education

Bachelor of Arts in Design
Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) Cum Laude

Exhibition

Graduation Show 2026
@Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven, NL)
“Soft Transit”

Blind Spot
@Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven, NL)
“80 Years – 8 Seconds – 180 Grams”, with Paula Schulte

Covilhã Design Triennial
(Covilhã, PT)
“Fountain Scapes”

Glass Room
@Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven, NL)
“Felt Dirty”

We were here
@Salone del Mobile (Milan, IT)
“Curtain of Host and Commensal”, with Bureautobeconfirmed

Fields of Industries
@Z33 (Hasselt, BE)
“Rhine‘s transformation‘”, with Studio Technogeographies

Email, Instagram

BA Graduation Project @Design Academy Eindhoven, Exhibited during the Graduation Show at Dutch Design Week 2026.

Special Thanks to Julian Bieneck (Production), Antonia Aschenbrenner (Graphic Design), Giovanni Arnold (Production Metal Railing), Forbo Flooring (Sponsoring Linoleum Flooring).

Soft Transit is a series of prototypes for train interiors, designed with the purpose of making long-distance train travel more attractive. As object studies, the speculative prototypes consider space, time and social function, while the effective use of the journey time becomes a driving factor. Designer Robyn Sonntag considers trains as inhabited spaces and tackles the perception of comfort and privacy as luxury by proposing four distinct spatial environments: ‘Shelter’, ‘Focus’, ‘Gather’ and ‘Pause’. Restructuring the class system, these conditions are expressed through variations in seating arrangements, enclosure, materiality and lighting. The project is presented through a 1:1 prototype of the ‘Shelter’ design, allowing visitors to experience the proposed interior at full scale. By shifting attention from movement alone to the experience of the journey, ‘Soft Transit’ asks whether the quality of time spent in transit should also become part of the conversation about the future of rail travel.

BA Graduation Project @Design Academy Eindhoven, Exhibithed during The Blind Spot at Dutch Design Week 2026.

In Collaboration with Paula Schulte with a special thanks to the Lübecker Stadtwald.

80 years – 8 seconds – 180 grams is a research project that follows the journey of a single spruce tree, from seed to ash, with its final material trace transformed into soap. In Northern Europe, fast-growing spruce monocultures are an important economic factor. Often vulnerable to drought, disease and bark beetles, these forests are frequently presented as victims of natural disturbance. A spruce grows from a planted seed into a mature tree within 80 years. Within approximately 8 seconds, it’s cut down. Once felled, the tree is stripped, transported, processed for timber or burned for energy. When burned, the remaining 180 grams of ashes become a material measure of 80 years of growth. Using a historical soap-making process, Robyn Sonntag and Paula Schulte transform the ashes of a single tree into soap. By linking the lifespan of a tree to an everyday act of consumption, they propose another reading of forest decline: one that invites reflection on the timescales of forests, industry and human consumption.

A ceramic take on the utilitarian compartment plastic tray.

Ceramic, cast
340 x 210 x 30 mm

Transitional Spaces are shaped by efficiency. They organise movement, regulate behaviour, and prioritise function over expression. Their forms are rarely noticed, yet highly specific.

This project examines how ornament emerges under these conditions, not as decoration but as a byproduct of optimisation. Historically, ornament carried cultural meaning. In contemporary transitional spaces, it persists in embedded form, shaped by standardisation and repetition.

Using a photographic archive of transit and infrastructure, elements are isolated from their original function. What remains are formal residues such as proportions, repetitions, edges, and separations shaped by systems rather than authorship.

Through a series of models, these fragments are translated into a formal vocabulary. Removed from their original systems, they are abstracted and studied as independent forms.

This vocabulary becomes the basis for the final object. The form studies are re-applied as a design reference, structuring a spatial element that separates and connects, producing privacy and openness while triggering recognition.

The project proposes a method of reading non-places, treating efficiency as a formative force and ornament as a carrier of contemporary memory.

A 280 × 130 mm wall lamp composed of three casted beeswax pieces, mounted on a metal structure. The layered format creates a collage-like composition, emphasizing the material’s translucency and organic texture as light filters through.

Exhibited with Studio Technogeographies during Fields of Industries at Z33 2024.

The Rhine and its complex relationship between humans and industry has witnessed the development of civilisations. It has been transformed by human into an instrument played by both nature and industry.

The history of the Rhine is gradually being transformed into a corset that serves human needs and industries alike. Through our use and interventions, such as the straightening of the once wild river, its characteristics and melody are changing. Orchestrated control transforms the flow of the Rhine into an artificial rhythm.

At the center of these developments are the Rhine’s most important resources: gravel and sand. This natural wealth, which is essential for industries, becomes the basis of concrete, the foundation of the construction industry. This natural metamorphosis ‘from mountain to sand’ is disturbed – the accelerated flow, a consequence of river bed changes, gravel extraction and hydroelectric power stations, interrupts the natural movement and changes the course of the river.

The staging of nature and the human interventions that transformed the once free-flowing Rhine into a regulated instrument stand as witness to the complex relationship between nature and the industries it sustains.

This mapping project explores the visual identity of Groenewoud, an area in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, through its distinctive typography and symbols. By documenting typefaces found across restaurants, shops, street signs, graffiti, and other public displays, the project provides a detailed view of the neighbourhood’s typographic character. Each font was photographed in its natural context, analysed for its unique traits, colors, and origins, and cataloged into a comprehensive archive of Groenewoud’s visual landscape.

The final outcome includes two large-format posters. The primary poster is a structured index, presenting each font in visual overviews that represent individual shops and establishments. The second poster reinterprets an online description of Groenewoud itself, using the area’s own typefaces to convey this narrative. Additionally, this poster includes a color-based map of Groenewoud, highlighting the observation points where each typeface was documented. This blend of documentation and typographic re-creation captures the unique essence of Groenewoud, conveying its atmosphere through the very fonts that define its streetscape.

A Coffeemaker Design Concept, inspired by the Hyundai Pony EV Heritage Design.

Drawing on the captivating design of the Hyundai Pony EV Heritage concept car, I embarked on a creative exploration into its form language, materiality, and identity. This coffee maker concept integrates the car’s sleek lines, refined contours, and premium materials to bring elements of high-performance automotive design to an everyday object. The result is a fusion of two design worlds, where automotive elegance meets coffee-making functionality.

Top