Chimera Design is a design studio focusing on evidence-based practices, spatial installations, custom furniture, and a deep rooted Interior Architecture practice with offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Hudson, NY.
Co-founded by long-time best friends and artistic confidants Amanda Swain and Daisy Hook, Chimera Design celebrates boundless thinking while preserving and honoring the working knowledge and principles of Architecture and Design. Their informed design process is playful, investigative, and supportive of independent artisans and makers. At the heart of Chimera is a deeply thoughtful, collaborative, and fulfilling design process for all involved.
With immense respect for each other, clients, and their artist collaborators, Daisy and Amanda regard their work as designers as a privilege approached with utmost reverence. Daisy’s sensibility lies in the emotions evoked by aesthetic decisions and the science of architecture. Amanda cultivates the world of custom-built furniture and champions the importance of reaching the truest expression of an intended concept. Chimera shares a devotion to all aspects of design, resulting in spaces that are not only beautiful but also reflect clients’ dreams for the world.
Amanda and Daisy met over a decade ago while studying Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Mutually compelled by the other's background and perspective, they were immediately drawn to each other, and soon discovered an innate ability to collaborate symbiotically. Today, their partnership is an intertwining of visions, aptitudes, and values.
After graduating in 2014, Daisy and Amanda began careers in high-end residential and commercial design on opposite coasts. In New York City, Daisy turned her focus to healing spaces and sustainable perspectives. In the Bay Area, Amanda built an expansive community of independent artisans, designers, peers, and advocates. Distance bearing no issue to consistent communication, their relationship deepened and evolved from friends, to collaborators, to business partners.
As Chimera Design, Daisy and Amanda have refined a complementary process consisting of progressive encounters and reconciliations between, at times, seemingly divergent approaches and perspectives.
Daisy was born in Berlin at the tail end of a shifting city to young parents living out their individual artistic pursuits. Her father is a celebrated German furniture designer, and her mother performed for audiences that sometimes included Andy Warhol. Rebelling against their respective strict upbringings, Daisy’s parents created an expansive environment, nurturing her creative spirit. They moved often, always in search of a better home, and traveled across Europe, immersing themselves in art and culture. Through this unique upbringing and exposure, Daisy learned to appreciate spaces not based on surface-level aesthetics, but on the emotional responses evoked by their materials, colors, and textures. This curiosity and wonder lead her to study the science-based evidence on design components such as lighting, materials, and circulation. She brings a holistic, human-centered approach to design. Daisy is committed to a therapeutic design process for her clients that digs beyond mere aesthetics.
Daisy received a degree in Interior Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. Upon graduating, she worked in the social sector for a year. She then moved to NYC where she took on roles at Billy Cotton, David M. Sullivan, and ALA. At ALA, her most notable contribution was research into Biophilic Design on the project Parsley Health, which was well published as a new design approach to healthcare. She then worked in high-end residential on Martha’s Vineyard while simultaneously founding her firm HOOK.HAUS where she explores her different curiosities within the world of design.
Amanda, born in Oakland, California, comes from a lineage of women artists using their unique perspectives to engage with the world. Amanda’s mother, a Nicaraguan architect, considered their home a playground for testing conceptual ideas and materials studies. Her mother drew upon her artistic expression and knowledge as a position of power in an environment that was otherwise hostile to her. Watching her mother use her own language, processes, and skillset taught Amanda the importance of exploring your ideas without fear and trusting your intuition. She channels this sentiment, pushing the boundaries and preconceived limits. To Amanda, design is about expressing ideas, backing up vision, and an unwavering commitment to self-trust. With clients, she fearlessly champions the importance of reaching the best possible outcome and ultimate expression of an intended concept. Through intentional and sometimes unconventional processes, she works to reach and expand client’s visions.
Amanda received a degree in Interior Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. Upon graduating she returned home to the Bay Area to pursue roles in high-end residential and commercial design for local firms such as Garcia Tamjidi Architecture + Design, and Studio Becky Carter. In 2018 Amanda founded OTHRSPACE, her own creative studio focused on unique furniture and custom fabrication. Her furniture designs and contributions to the Bay Area emerging design community have been recognized by Sight Unseen, Dezeen, and Design Milk.
