Episode 8 - Parametric Designer

Sana Alabdulwahed is a youth parametric designer from Saudi Arabia. She pursues her design education in the United States. After graduation, San established her parametric design business and architectural design firm and became an owner at AW Studio. Sana created El_Masnad Lounge Carpet, a Silver A' Design Award Winner for Furniture, Decorative Items, and Homeware Design Category in 2015. It has been exhibited in nine cities around the world. The designer keywords are Story-Telling, Contemporary, Sculptural, Conceptual, and Human-Centered. This week, Sana will share her design journey, finish her studies in the United States, and start her architecture career. San Alabdulwahed holds a Master of Degree NameMaster of Science (M.S.) in Environmental Design, Furniture and FixtureField Of Study Furniture and Fixture Design from ArtCenter College of Design, Los Angeles, and Bachelor of Science of StudyInterior Architecture from Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University.

We had a wonderful conversation with Sana and hoped to learn more about the challenges of her education. Sana discovers her design career and parametric business in Saudi Arabia and Los Angeles. If you have any suggestions for Sana, please leave a message below.

Challenge 1 - Transportation in LA

LA is very different than Boston. I went to the school of the Art Center and went back to the bicycle. Although it was very hard, I got a lot of muscles.

Challenge 2 - Furniture is an expensive major

Many people in our country come to me and ask me why I want to study furniture. I like to design products. However, it is costly to develop prototypes. Developing furniture and products is very expensive.

Challenge 3 - Stared to live by myself

I used to live with my brother, and when studying in Los Angeles, I had to take care of my life and school by myself.

Sana's Interview

Sana's Project

5 Mins Show

I am pleased to hear your voice on the challenge of being an international student through this channel. Please feel free to leave your comments below. If you want to know more about Sana, please send us an email. Thank you.

Sana Alabdulwahed Brief Intro:

Sana Alabdulwahed is a designer who pursues beauty. She aims to make a social impact through cultural expressions to meet local aspirations. Empowerment is an essential product of the design process, such as engaging with other diverse designers in authenticity and backgrounds.

She is currently incubating at the KFUPM Institute of Entrepreneurship in collaboration with Sabic. She has an M.Sc in Environmental Design specializing in furniture from ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA. Her graduation project @El_Masnad Lounge-Carpet is a Silver A‘ Design Award Winner for Furniture and Homeware Category in 2015. @El_Masnad is a physical imprint of the behavior of Saudis in the living space. The work had exhibited in 10 cities around the world. The designer specializes in telling stories through computing information graphs, timelines, videos, music, or imagery.

She gained experience as an R&D computational designer when she worked in Los Angeles. She created custom mass production designs for metal perforation using Parametric design for advanced manufacturing. Sana designs include building façade, interior cladding, and ceilings. The scale of projects varies in size from Airports like LAX, SFO to reception desk background. Now, she is interested in bringing computational furniture design to the region through additive manufacturing techniques.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salabdulwahed/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanayaw/

Music: https://www.bensound.com