In Mexico, hojalatería refers to a traditional craft and trade focused on producing functional household objects by manually cutting, rolling, and embossing thin sheets of galvanized steel. Cappello first learned of hojalatería in 2020, and five years into immersing himself in the craft, Ransmeier’s invitation felt like a natural evolution of his work.

“Working with hojalata offers an amazing pedagogical tool, because it breaks down the practice of design to such fundamental parameters,” Cappello says, highlighting the educational value. “The question becomes: how can we develop a contemporary language through an understated technique?”

The students’ brief was simple: design a watering can, along with another item for the home. Following a series of models, the students traveled to work directly with the same hojalatería workshop where Cappello first learned the craft, led by artisans Arturo Vega and María Guadalupe Gil, who have specialized in custom hojalata for over twenty years.


“As industrial designers, it is our job to collaborate with others,” Ransmeier says. “And in this case, the artisanal nature of the process underscored the human element present in the making of things.”

The endangered craft of hojalatería is gradually disappearing from Mexico, and as a result, Cappello noted how the project felt particularly rewarding—to teach young practitioners to reinterpret these materials and techniques. “It was very interesting to see the students connect with hojalata, because they could each relate—almost automatically, but in different ways—to its materiality,” he says. “At the heart of this project is a respect for that materiality, and for the dynamic people and places that have developed this formal vocabulary and the culture that surrounds it.”

When Ransmeier—a longtime MillerKnoll collaborator through product design for Herman Miller, HAY, and Maharam—brought Cappello and his students on an inspiration-gathering visit to the MillerKnoll Archives, an idea was born to showcase the project.


The Archives serve as a strong thread between MillerKnoll’s past, present, and future, and there is perhaps no place that better connects the history of the company to the MillerKnoll of today than Cranbrook. Eero Saarinen, Florence Knoll, Ray and Charles Eames, and Harry Bertoia became collaborators at the school, going on to design a movement and change the course of furniture.


It was a natural step, then, to ask if Ransmeier, Cappello, and the students might want to showcase their work in the Silo—a dedicated space for designer explorations, adjacent to the new Archives experience at the Design Yard.

“To share work by current Cranbrook students in the context of designs by the school’s alumni is meaningful,” says MillerKnoll Director of Archives and Brand Heritage Amy Auscherman, who facilitated the partnership. “It reveals a continued sensibility and curiosity around material and form.”


For Objetos de Hojalata para el Hogar, Ransmeier worked with the students on the Silo’s exhibition design, and together they created a terracotta semicircle plinth to display the 19 works acquired by MillerKnoll. The objects are rooted in Cranbrook’s emphasis on process, critique, and global exchange and serve as both personal and collective expressions. The resulting exhibition reflects the dialogue between craft, place, and contemporary practice.

Tickets are now available to experience Objetos de Hojalata para el Hogar at the MillerKnoll Archives. The exhibition is on view in the Archives Silo beginning June 26th, 2026, through September 26th, 2026, with select public viewing dates available this summer.