Editorial bio

Samantha Giam is the founder of Elemental, a family-founded movement brand from Singapore and Sydney. Her career in design and product development includes roles at Herman Miller and Steelcase. She took up Pilates after experiencing health issues in 2024; her love of the practice led her to become a certified instructor through the Swiss Pilates Institute, training under second-generation Pilates master Patricia Duchaussoy. The idea for Elemental began on a wooden deck in Niseko, where she found herself asking why a reformer could not belong as naturally outdoors as a chair, board or piece of well-made equipment. That question became TerraFold™, and then a broader product family designed around movement, place, material intelligence and long ownership.

Long bio

Samantha Giam founded Elemental from the intersection of three long-standing interests: movement, well-made objects and the outdoors.

Giam has spent most of her working life in design and product development. At Steelcase, she learned to ground work in insight, research and first principles, with rigorous testing and compliance informing development from the outset. Her experience at Herman Miller deepened her appreciation of design heritage, enduring purpose and the courage to invest in new ideas.

These experiences inform Elemental's approach: understanding the user before defining the object, and considering function, materials, construction and everyday use together.

Alongside snowboarding, swimming, hiking and sailing, Pilates became a personal passion after she experienced health issues in 2024. She went on to qualify as a Pilates instructor at the Swiss Pilates Institute under Patricia Duchaussoy.

Duchaussoy, the Institute's founder, is a second-generation Pilates master with more than 35 years of international teaching experience. Her background in professional dance and training with first-generation teachers bring a connection to the method's roots. Giam brings her own experience as a practitioner and instructor into Elemental's product development.

The idea for Elemental began during a summer in Niseko. Standing on the deck and wanting to practise outside, she found that the reformers available to her were heavy, static and designed for one permanent indoor room. The question was simple: why doesn't a reformer belong here?

Elemental grew from that question. The company's first products apply furniture-level design thinking and outdoor-minded materials to Pilates apparatus, beginning with TerraFold™, followed by TerraStudio™ and Pebble™. Giam describes the company not as a fitness-equipment brand, but as a movement brand whose first discipline is Pilates.