After meeting at Servei Estació, Barcelona’s famous company offering multiple products and services, where they pooled ideas and experiences gained in the studios where they’d previously worked, designers Ruth Pérez and Xavier Flores decided to join forces and set up their company, COMPEIXALAIGUA DESIGNSTUDIO, which allowed them to give shape to the designs they like to create.
Their passion for interactive objects and temporary spaces, for use by the clients they’re created for only, are two major concerns of theirs. As they put it, ‘We try to create objects that aren’t just discrete entities but which grow, develop and change as the user does and in accordance with the complicity between user and object resulting from morphological and perceptual changes’.
The studio has designed and developed objects for home accessories, lighting, food and fashion brands, among them Lékué, Grupo Simon, Nestlé, Chocolat Factory, Vialis and Concha Blanch. It has also exhibited its work at international fairs and submitted it at design competitions in Germany, France, Spain and Slovenia. Its piece, Steam Roaster, a silicone bowl for steam-roasting food, created for Lekué, received the Delta de Oro prize in 2011 – a prestigious design prize awarded by the Associació de Disseny Industrial i Foment de les Arts i el Disseny (FAD), which co-organises the Barcelona Design Festival. The bowl garnered the award for being a clever ‘multifunctional design’.
Interiors From Spain: What inspires you when creating your designs?
Compeixalaigua: People tend to tell us that irony is a key characteristic of our work – something deeply rooted in our Mediterranean DNA. But at the end of the day our world is now so interconnected that we get our ideas and inspirations from anywhere in the world.
IFS: How would you describe the style of your work?
Compeixalaigua: Our style is probably very global, save for some specific products which seem to appeal more to some countries than others. For example, our steam-roaster is much more popular in Japan than in Spain.
IFS: What do you think about industrial design and your contribution to it?
Compeixalaigua: Industrial design has one great advantage and that’s that we’re able to move from one area of design to another. This gives us opportunities to discover and try out new materials and processes which are sometimes central to a project or present us with a creative path to follow. We try to design for everyday folk and believe it shouldn’t come at an inflated price but should keep costs down. To do so, there needs to be honesty in both the relationship with the user and in the use of materials – we like to ask ourselves questions like who we’re designing for, and why and how we’re designing something.
IFS: Can you name some of your main projects related to the home?
Compeixalaigua: Apart from the aforementioned Steam Roaster for Lékué, we’ve designed a seat with a trompe l’oeil back made of adhesive vinyl and a ceramic vase called Si Hoy No Tengo Flores (If I don’t have flowers today).
IFS: What projects are you currently working on?
Compeixalaigua: We’re working on projects in various sectors though we’re not in a position to reveal too much about what these are. We’re currently developing three lighting/ electrical projects, a product for children and a cultural piece related to local traditions.
IFS: What are the studio’s future plans?
Compeixalaigua: As for the future, despite having several projects on the go simultaneously – one of which we’re about to embark on – we want to keep things on the scale they’re at now. We don’t want to grow hugely and like to be involved in all stages of every project.