About Raccoonsthaus
(A Clarification Nobody Asked For)
Racconsthaus is a personal repository for serious ideas with questionable origins: objects, writing, experiments, and projects collected with curiosity rather than intent. Think less white-cube gallery, more well-lit dumpster behind one.
Racconsthaus exists because, at a certain point, it became obvious that there was no suitable container for ideas that were made seriously but not solemnly, carefully but not politely, and with just enough intent to be mildly hazardous to their surroundings.
The name is deliberate, though not in the way that suggests a committee was involved. Raccoons are fascinating creatures. They possess nimble hands, excellent night vision, and an unshakable belief that anything discarded was probably discarded by mistake. They do not seek value where it is announced. They seek it where it has been overlooked, abandoned, or wrapped in something unappealing for protection. Racconsthaus operates on the same principle, minus the fur and legal issues.
Raccoons are also excellent curators of trash. This is not an insult. They sift, test, reject, and occasionally triumph. Racconsthaus borrows this methodology shamelessly. It is a place for salvaged ideas, rescued materials, half-formed thoughts, accidental successes, and failures that turned out to be far more interesting than the original plan. If something here looks intentional, it probably wasn’t at first.
Some things housed in Racconsthaus are finished. Many are not. All of them have been allowed to exist long enough to develop opinions. This is not a space concerned with perfection, trends, or tidy conclusions. It is concerned with curiosity, process, and the stubborn suspicion that value often hides in places no one thought to check usually because the bin was labelled “miscellaneous” and everyone else kept walking.
About me AKA Manfredi Calamai
〰️
About me AKA Manfredi Calamai 〰️
This is the administrative proof that Racconsthaus did not materialize out of thin air. It turns out there is a person behind it, with a background, a career, and an alarming tendency to say yes to complex problems.
Education
Master of Arts in Design — Creative Academy
Laurea in Product Design — Istituto Europeo di Design
International Law and Legal Studies — Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
ESABAC Dual Diploma — Liceo Internazionale Machiavelli Capponi
Professional Experience
Watch Designer — IWC Schaffhausen (2018–present)
Watch Designer — Montblanc (2017–2018)
Designer — IWC Schaffhausen (2016–2017)
Designer / Creative Director — Orologi Calamai (2013–present)
CV note
If this reads unusually coherent, it is because it has been edited repeatedly to hide the amount of trial, error, and mild panic involved.
Orologi Calamai
(A Disclaimer Is Still Required)
Orologi Calamai is my night job. My Batman role. This is the part where I clarify that I did not set out to live a double life, and that I would, under different circumstances, have seriously considered being a stripper instead. Unfortunately, family watchmaking traditions intervened.
It is a small, family-run watch brand with aviation roots, mechanical convictions, and an admirable resistance to shortcuts. It is not large, but it is healthy, independent, and very real. The kind of business where decisions matter, mistakes are remembered, and optimism must regularly negotiate with physics.
Working on Orologi Calamai has been a parallel education. Not the kind with grades or polite feedback, but the kind where suppliers have opinions, timelines collapse, compromises ambush you from behind, and reality shows up uninvited. I also learned to negotiate with the most demanding stakeholders imaginable: family members. Against statistical probability, we still respect each other, collaborate, and occasionally even agree.
What I do
I act as the creative mind behind Orologi Calamai. This includes the watch designs themselves, the visual language, and much of the material that surrounds the product. It also includes a healthy amount of persistent interference whenever design risks becoming merely acceptable.
Here, precision matters. Tolerances are unforgiving. Decisions have consequences measured in millimeters, weeks, and invoices. Jokes are generally frowned upon—though not entirely absent, and never without risk.
What you’ll see here
Some of the watches designed for Orologi Calamai are among the works I am most proud of. Those will appear here, carefully selected and unapologetically personal.
Others exist as well. They can be found on the official Orologi Calamai website. A small disclaimer applies: I designed it, then handed it to an agency, then forgot about it, and now feel a mild but persistent embarrassment when revisiting it. This, too, is part of the learning process.
For those who prefer their curiosity accompanied by specifications, materials, and fewer metaphors, a dedicated page is available.
Antartica
I joined the crew of Tecla Sailing, a 1915 sailing vessel with strong opinions about weather, and crossed the Drake Passage to reach the Antarctic Peninsula. There was ice. There was wind. There was silence of the sort that makes you reconsider several past life choices. Comfort was removed entirely, largely for educational purposes.
The expedition left behind photographs, stories, and a permanent recalibration of what qualifies as “inconvenient.” There is a dedicated page with the full account of the journey, for those inclined toward cold places, old ships, and bad decisions executed competently.
The experience reinforced a number of important lessons: preparation matters, cooperation is not optional, and the ocean does not respect optimism, confidence, or spreadsheets. Perspective arrived quickly and without warning, usually at inconvenient moments.
Contact us
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