Our Story
Nafisi Studio is run by husband and wife Abdollah and Kate Nafisi, a British luxury bespoke art furniture and sculpture studio in Horsham. Every handmade piece has a story, fusing progressive and heritage craftsmanship.
ABDOLLAH NAFISI
Abdollah Nafisi is a designer craftsman at Nafisi Studio, with over 15 years experience in woodworking. He has created luxury furnishings and artwork for the home as well as sculptural works for the outdoors. As a Freeman member of the Worshipful Company of Furniture makers and a TV star from the BBC TWO series ‘The Victorian House of Arts & Crafts’, Abdollah likes to contribute to the craft industry and inspire others.
Originally from Iran where he ran his own woodworking workshop for 4 years, he spent 6 years in the desert travelling with nomads and tribes studying their craftsmanship and improvisation. He relocated to the UK in 2011, in 2013 he set up his workshop in Horsham to produce bespoke commissioned pieces. Abdollah is passionate about raising the quality bar of each of his pieces as well as in his field to make the British handmade luxury industry proud.
He also teaches woodworking courses and lectures in design, often offering local businesses and charities pro bono work. Download CV
Kate Nafisi
Kate is Art Director and designer at Nafisi Studio, she has been a software designer for 10 years and also an art & design talk series curator. Born and bred in London, she started out in both fine and interactive art, leading her to digital touch screen user experience and finally to UI/UX design for digital products and softwares.
Her passion for human interaction and early attraction to participatory art, make furniture design and sculpture a natural extension of her skill set. When Kate designs she assesses the user experience first and foremost, paying great attention to ergonomics and function ensuring every piece satisfies the clients needs. She cares deeply about provenance of materials and building rejuvenation into the design for a sustainable future. Kate also manages the Studio from communication, to marketing operations and to their courses.
“When something is good quality a person can instantly connect to and feel sympathy for what beauty means in the mind of the artist.”
OUR Values
A value to us, is a personal behaviour done regardless of outcome and regardless of what others think:
Respect for traditional craftsmanship
Uncompromising quality of work
Playfulness
Embrace risk
Origin of materials
How We Joined Forces
Kate and Abdollah met in London while Abdollah was restoring Victorian houses and they started dating. They began to sketch and exchange ideas together. Kate proposed to Abdollah a year later and they got married.
Abdollah had been making high-end cabinetry for over 1o years in both Tehran and London. Kate had been working in tech for 10 years as a digital product designer at places such as Pentagram NY, Barclays LND, Ustwo and Facebook LND as well as a few of her own start ups. It became clear, that their skills and creative thinking were highly complimentary.
They shared a passion to become artists working together in their own studio, blurring the boundaries between furniture and art, whilst exploring new materials. They became excited about the idea of #futureheritage which seeks to consciously design the future world we wish to live in by learning and connecting to the past values and practises we wish to continue to conserve.
Abdollah brings an uncompromising passion for quality of work and Kate a devotion to the provenance or their materials, together they founded Nafisi Studio. It has been running for 2 years since Abdollah and Kate got married.
And that is how Nafisi Studio was born.
Here’s what people say about us, read our testimonials:
our influences
From Abdollah’s Persian Rug studies, travels in the Iranian desert, Islamic art photography, and Japanese joinery, to Kate’s graphic design, interactive art, futurology, heritage craft and biomimicry, they find and fuse their inspirations in a rich multitude of places.
