With their design label Sheyn, Nicolas Gold and Markus Schaffer are setting new standards for sustainable, innovative design from Vienna. The architecture-inspired vases and home accessories are produced locally with 3D printers and distributed internationally. Since its founding in 2016 as a living room project, the design studio has grown so much that they have now moved into a new headquarters in the Gewerbehof Seestadt of the Wirtschaftsagentur Wien.
Sheyn – the best of both worlds
“Sheyn” is a word whose meaning and pronunciation are very close to the Austrian “scheen.” However, it comes from Yiddish—a language that connects Hebrew and German. It’s no surprise that Jewish-born architect Nicolas Gold was inspired by his grandmother’s language when he decided in 2016 to found a design studio together with Graz-based business informatics specialist Markus Schaffer. Their motto: “Understanding different is beautiful, and beautiful is Sheyn.”
Today, the company produces its entire range with 60 in-house 3D printers and offers a wide selection of design products: from home accessories such as vases, bowls, and concrete furniture to lamps and scented candles.
The design language of Sheyn is strongly influenced by modern architecture; Sheyn even describes their products as “tiny architecture for home and body.” Markus Schaffer is holding a vase from the “Bloz” series in the photo.
In the business park, we can easily manufacture and ship our products, with the added benefit of being able to flexibly rent additional space as needed. The scalability and ideal infrastructure make it the perfect location for us.
Markus Schaffer
Mitbegründer und CEO von Sheyn.
Room for growth and creativity: From the living room to the Gewerbehof Seestadt
It all started in the living room: After purchasing their first 3D printer in 2019, nine more printers soon filled Markus and Nicolas’s shared apartment with busy humming day and night. The first successful sales at design fairs made it clear that they had outgrown living room production: “So we started looking for a dedicated location for Sheyn—and found our shop on Lerchenfelder Straße. Here, we could combine showroom, office, and production in one space.”
The vases by Sheyn are made with PLA – a bioplastic based on corn starch that enables flexibility and a wide range of colors in design, and is recyclable as well as biodegradable.
“Another important milestone was the 2022 funding from Wirtschaftsagentur Wien, which enabled us to expand into Germany,” recalls Markus Schaffer. Rapid growth led to renting another production space, but that soon became too small as well. After an intensive search for a new location, Gold and Schaffer discovered the Gewerbehof in Seestadt.
Despite initial doubts due to the distance from Vienna’s city center, the Gewerbehof convinced them with its flexible, customizable, and rentable spaces. For companies like Sheyn, the location offers numerous advantages, such as the combination of office, production, and storage with a well-thought-out infrastructure for smooth operations and heavy-duty lifts for deliveries and shipments.
Thanks to the good connections to the U2 and S-Bahn, you can quickly reach the city center, where Sheyn still uses the space on Lerchenfelder Straße as a showroom and shop.
Thanks to 3D printing, we produce exclusively on demand and avoid overproduction – even though we offer over 50 designs in more than 20 colors.
Nicolas Gold
Mitbegründer und CEO von Sheyn.
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