Apparatu, adventures in ceramics: Interview to Xavier Mañosa

*  The following article is an excerpt from Design in/from Spain magazine for smartphones and tablets.

Xavier Mañosa is not a ceramicist content only to sit at a wheel throwing pretty pots and vases to adorn people's mantelpieces. Rather he and his family-run studio Apparatu like to get involved in different businesses, working with them to experiment and make products perhaps not immediately associated with ceramic.

Mañosa relishes collaborative projects: 'They're like a school for me, I'm a sponge learning everything I can while working with people who I admire.'

Mañosa has been working lately with one of Spain's largest companies, quartz surface giant Cosentino: 'We are working on a collection of furniture made from Dekton, Cosentino's ultra-compact material, which is normally used in architectural projects.

'We have been working with Dekton for two years and have researched the material by examining its components in powdered form. We've treated it as we do clay powder, mixing it up, modelling and then firing it.' But he is not giving away much detail as to the finished product  - suffice to say all will be revealed at the upcoming Milan Furniture Fair. '

Apparatu makes the Pleat Box ceramic lamps for Marset, one of Spain's leading modern lighting brands, and it is a fixture that's proved hugely successful for home and contract interiors. Designed with Berlin design studio Mashallah, the ceramic is shaped so it resembles folds in fabric, which gives the lights a soft, organic look.

And Apparatu also makes the ceramic legs for the Fang table designed by Mañosa for BD, Barcelona's most illustrious furniture company.

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