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FEDER
05/22/2015

MAD LAB

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Antonio Serrano and Mar López co-founders of MAD-LAB

Antonio Serrano and Mar López co-founders of MAD-LAB

Estantería LivingBlock

Estantería LivingBlock

Colección Opening

Colección Opening

Colección Four Houses

Colección Four Houses

Colección Fábricas

Colección Fábricas

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Reset Design de Zagreb

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Reset Design de Zagreb

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Reset Design de Berlín

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Reset Design de Berlín

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la Feria Art Madrid

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la Feria Art Madrid

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Madtastic de Milán

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Madtastic de Milán

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Madtastic de Milán

Colecciones de MAD-LAB en la exposición Madtastic de Milán

Mad Lab is a Madrid-based design company committed to innovation and good design, both in terms of objects and a lifestyle. The words, ‘To design is to discern and know which solutions new objects suggest to you’ are central to the philosophy of Antonio Serrano Bulnes, creative director and designer of Mad Lab. Here he tells us about his company, his designs and his future goals and challenges.

 

Interiors From Spain: What’s your main aim as a company?

 

Mad Lab: To be a high-profile design company in Spain. What’s more, we have a particular idea of what we want to do — to accumulate enough expertise in our workshop to pass it on to other types of corporate culture that realise the products we’ve been experimenting with designing. Our ambition is also to have the option to manufacture pieces by more designers capable of creating objects for our own line of products.

 

Interiors From Spain: Antonio, what are the main characteristics of your designs?

 

Mad Lab: The main one is objects that are well made, well manufactured — qualities that have become devalued today by the availability of furniture with an artificially limited lifespan. We’re all for reclaiming the long-lasting object — the heirloom — as opposed to ones with built-in obsolescence.

 

Another aspect of my work is to realise and ensure the user recognises a material’s language, its essential qualities without needing to handle it much. It’s about just letting the objects speak to the user and suggest how best they can be used without making a big issue of the material.

 

I also believe in a location as a culture’s means of expression which is found in the methodology of certain companies capable of transforming materials into objects that can be used and enjoyed.

 

And I value the process of acquiring knowledge by trial and error, as a way of gaining the know-how which can then be communicated to third parties.

 

Interiors From Spain: You mainly design furniture and homeware. Why are you attracted to the design world? How important are innovation and technology in the development of your products?

 

Mad Lab: I feel comfortable in the design world and its modern, contemporary objects. It might seem that all has been resolved in terms of design, but that’s not so. There’s a lot more to resolve and I believe it will never be fully resolved because there are no ultimate truths, just changing values.

 

Trying to subvert the system of planned obsolescence inherent in some furniture poses a challenge to those who want to produce well-crafted, solidly made furniture that lasts for many years.

 

Our objects have a magical quality; they’re also decorative and aren’t concerned with mere functionality. Instead, they’re the perfect way to nourish the soul, our hopes and most ancient dreams. They’re like art, they’re things you either like or don’t like.

 

Technology is key to the conception and manufacture of our products. Our pieces might look hand-crafted but CNC technology is integral to their creation, even if it’s not visible. A good example of this is the windows in our piece, Opening: we couldn’t have done the right-angled corners so perfectly without us using CNC technology.

 

Interiors From Spain: Why is wood such an important raw material for you? What qualities do you want to convey with it?

 

Mad Lab: Wood as a raw material is fascinating, it exists in silence and brings warmth. It evokes the legend of the ‘tree of life’, where the four elements — air, earth, water and fire — converge. For this reason, it’s a material that, thanks to its different species, offers unique qualities that connect us to the essence of being human. The result of working with wood, if you let it speak it to you, is that you find yourself with an added value that’s very familiar to the user. It also brings with it this affection that relates to the reptilian and oldest part of our brain, where stories about our original ancestors, Homo Sapiens, survive.

 

I also like working with other materials, such as steel, brass, bronze, plastic, glass, ceramic and porcelain. I’ve started working on some designs for which I’m considering using these materials.

 

Interiors From Spain: Your designs tells stories, but what type of stories?

 

Mad Lab: All kinds. Our Opening, World’s Houses and Houses collections tell stories about shelter, of open windows which you can look out from and look at yourself, and, above all, wood, which connects with humans in an ancient way. And these are essential questions in our lives.

 

Now that our world seems to be shrinking thanks to bigger social networks — which allow us to peer into other people’s lives — it surprises me to see how the Opening pieces have colonised homes in other parts of the world, on, say, people’s mantelpieces or sideboards.

 

An example of a nice story told by my furniture can be found in TreeTable, whose legs recall the tree branches, such as those on sycamore maple trees (Acer pseudoplatanus), you can see in any Spanish town. These branches intertwine to offer a solid shadow that provides a canopy of shade, peace and calm for people walking under them in the hot summer months.

 

Interiors From Spain: You want to involve new designers in your projects. How do you go about this? What criteria do you have for choosing designers?

 

Mad Lab: This is proving a slower process than we originally hoped. We’ve decided that in order to take on work by another designer, we first need to sell it to a market we’ve already nailed and that the object needs to be authentic and profitable for whoever takes part in our adventure.

 

Our selection criteria are very simple: that designers create objects which harmonise with those in our own catalogue of products. There are lots of designers who we’d like to involve and who I think would play an important role in the company. I really admire Konstantin Grcic, Tomás Alonso and many others and I’d love it if they created pieces for our future portfolio of products.

 

We’re also initiating collaborations with other designers to reissue pieces that are 20 years old, but which, in their time, weren’t fully appreciated. These include Entrar-Salir, a piece created by a short-lived company which we think would be a hit today.

 

Interiors From Spain: How is your online e-commerce platform Mad Lab Shop going?

 

Mad Lab: It’s gradually taking shape. Two factors directly influence how well it works — its ability to raise awareness of the brand and ensure the user perceives it as reliable, things which can’t be achieved overnight. In this respect, social networks are vital in terms of making this go more smoothly.

 

We’re finding that small pieces sell better than furniture as they’re cheaper and easier to transport — and this is a key aspect of our business.

 

Social networks play as important a role in our business as online support, since people often find out about you through these. Customers then come back to you in their own time to buy things.

 

Interiors From Spain: You’ve taken part in various exhibitions in Spain and abroad. How do you feel about them? Are they good for business?

 

Mad Lab: We’re currently taking part in the exhibition, Reset Design, organised by The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and commissioned by Marcelo Leslabay. It’s described as ‘a travelling exhibition made up of 10 homeware companies set up in recent years in Spain’ and its aim is to tour most of Europe in two years. It’s travelled to Berlin and Zagreb to date.

 

We’ve also taken part in an exhibition of Spanish designers in conjunction with ICEX at the Spanish pavilion at the contemporary furniture fair, ICFF, last year in New York. At the same time, thanks to ICEX’s Commercial Office in the city, we also showed our work at the Sight Unseen Offsite exhibition, which coincides with ICFF. The events gave us lots of exposure.

 

What’s more, we also participate in pop-up shows which can be good for business if you know how to make the most of them and make a profit.

 

Interiors From Spain: Tell us about your work abroad. Which other countries do you have business links or contacts with? What has been the outcome of this?

 

Mad Lab: One of our best projects abroad was the exhibition, Madtastic! Fresh Design From Madrid, in Milan, which was commissioned by Tachy Mora and Javier Abio in 2013 and was part of the Milan Furniture Fair. It took place in the iconic Instituto Cervantes. As well as showing our two favourite pieces — ButaKita and Dressing Table from our LivingBlock collection — we designed and assembled the exhibition stand. This was a great endorsement of our work and posed a major challenge to us in terms of how to put together a small exhibition like this one.

 

Our participation in the programme ICEX NEXT has given us the necessary tools to make our entrée into the international market. We currently have a commercial presence in Miami, Berlin and Amsterdam and we’re trying to get our pieces into the collections of international museums.

 

Interiors From Spain: How do you rate all the hard work you’ve put into the business in the past three years? What are your goals and challenges in the next few years?

 

Mad Lab: The work we’ve put in has been intense but also very rewarding. We’ve brought out of lots of collections and now it’s time to take stock. This year, we’re going to reflect on and consolidate our designs and business. We think this year will prove hugely important for us and that’s how we’re taking things. Of course, there’ll be some sacrifices to make and we’ll have to rethink how we need to grow, a key consideration of all businesses aiming for sustainable growth.

 

We want to continue making things well, and consolidating our business in our area is a key priority. We need to optimise our catalogue of furniture and homeware to make it more commercial and invest more in equipment — these are our plans to help us make a good start to the year and face up to the future.

 

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