Sarah Sherman Samuel designed the home of Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith, featured in AD's March 2026 issue.

My work is shaped as much on a workshop floor as it is at a desk. When I’m not in my studio, I often find myself in a fabricator’s workshop working hand-in-hand with artisans and makers. We might be refining a solid wood joinery detail, testing finishes in person, or adjusting proportions as something is being built. The best part is that I’m doing it all in the community I call home, in West Michigan.

The author in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan

Amy Carroll

I founded my design studio in California, but seven years ago my husband, Rupert, and I moved our young family to Michigan, where I was born and raised. My mother, the child of immigrants from Finland, had been raised on a cattle farm in Northern Michigan. My sisters and I grew up in a house in Southwest Michigan largely built by my father, whose passion was woodworking and furniture making.…