De La Espada Lookbook Vol 2
81Pages

Focusing on the key pieces of furniture for the home: a place to eat, rest, sleep and work

De La Espada 004 Designers 0I0 On Location: Santa Clara 1728 014 A Conversation with Manuel Aires Mateus 058 A Conversation with Matthew Hilton 064 Our Craftspeople 068 On Location: Red House 070 At Home with De La Espada in Porto 122 De La Espada Woodcraft 124 Product Index 129 Timber 150 Credits 154

Emotion The human being is at the centre of everything we do. We have a strong belief in the power of design to transform people's lives, and our products are created with this in mind: emotional connection is valued equally to function. This manifests in the comfort, tactility, detailing and endurance of our products, informed by the passion of those who work to create them. From the designer to the craftsperson, there is pride in work well done, in rising to challenges and getting every detail right. De La Espada products are imbued with warmth and meaning brought by the hands that bear...

Balance We believe balance is key to creating meaningful products. Our dedicated factory in Portugal draws from the strengths of both advanced technology and traditional handcraft, uniting industrialised processes with smallscale production. In design and development, our allegiance to function is balanced with an appreciation for the decorative, our researchbased approach to problem solving enhanced by creative insight.

Collaboration De La Espada work closely with a small number of designers, forming significant and enduring partnerships. These collaborations combine leading design with the highest calibre European craftsmanship. A designer's vision extends far beyond just a chair or a bed; here, they conceive furniture for an entire home: a place to eat, rest, sleep and work. While each studio has a unique creative narrative, there is a common thread that runs through all De La Espada products, allowing for flexible combinations to achieve individualised interior spaces.

Neri&Hu is an inter-disciplinary awardwinning architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China, with an additional office in London. With their product line, 'neri&hu' they seek alternatives to the normative, questioning the potential in 'Chinese design.' neri&hu is the reinterpretation of the beauty in the raw material, changing perceptions through what is revealed, examining history and its path, or capturing an ordinary scene in a snapshot. DESIGNERS LUCA NICHETTO Luca Nichetto is an acclaimed Italian designer with offices in Venice and Stockholm. His work is informed by his...

MATTHEW HILTON Matthew Hilton is an esteemed British designer whose eponymous product line expresses the technical knowledge and clarity of vision gained over three decades in the industry. Utilising robust materials that improve with the mark of age, Matthew Hilton creates timelessly beautiful, exceedingly functional products that are rigorously engineered. Every view of a design is valued equally, every aspect carefully considered, allowing for a sense of appreciation over time as new details are discovered. Internationally renowned, Istanbul-based, multi-disciplinary design studio,...

361 ‘IBSTONE’ WINDSOR CHAI

Santa Clara 1728 Santa Clara 1728 is an intimate six-suite hotel housed in an 18th century building in the old cultural quarter of Lisbon. This warm, family-style accommodation was created by hotelier Joao Rodrigues, with design by award-winning architect, Manuel Aires Mateus. Generous windows allow natural light to spill over the interior spaces, and provide clear views of the Pantheon and Tagus River. Inside, an abundant use of wood and stone brings a sensual tactility to the space, while the design harmoniously combines original features, including stairs and archways, with sensitively...

400 MCQUEEN BED, 379 MCQUEEN BEDSIDE CHEST

364 WELLES TABLE, 349S UPHOLSTERED MANTA CHAIR

340 LOW LOUNGE CHAIR, 340O LOW OTTOMAN, 385 MARY’S SIDE TABLE 381L HORIZON COFFEE TABLE, 401 MCQUEEN SOFA

385 MARY’S SIDE TABLE

381L HORIZON COFFEE TABLE RIGHT: 340 LOW LOUNGE CHAIR, 340O LOW OTTOMAN, 385 MARY’S SIDE TABLE

343 COLOMBO DINING ARMCHAIR

362 ‘HASTOE’ WINDSOR CHAIR, 365 ORSON DESK 388 PORTO CHAIR, 358LS DIFFERENT TRAINS CABINE

370 LARGE STORAGE TRAY, 371 SMALL STORAGE TRAY FOR ORSON DESK

358LS DIFFERENT TRAINS CABINET

When Manuel Aires Mateus talks about architecture it sounds like poetry. He talks about memory, the senses, movement. Indeed his structures look like poetry: at once universal and specific, familiar and completely new, striking the heart of human perception. It is no surprise then that he spends much of his time reading literature and studying art: "I'm always very interested in everything that is cultural. I read poetry...or I see movies...I like very much some sculptors or some painters that we, in fact, use to understand experience and emotions. And we like the way they translate...

"In Casa No Tempo, it was about this idea to remake an archetype of a traditional house in the middle of the countryside, but more than that was to really...redesign their memories of the property. So our intention was really to make that project become very natural on the way they use it...but at the same [time] the way it belongs to the place, the natural way you see in that area. And the material became, of course, the traditional material already made, so we wanted to keep the memories of the time, of the building, so all the variety of the wall. we decided to keep this irregularity...

"I like the mark of age on things. Things you allow to get a bit worn are much easier to live with and I think they gain some value somehow, just by their being around a long time. Materials play a very important role in this. A material like solid wood just gets more beautiful with age. Wood, when it gets scratched and discoloured, I think it gets better and better." Perhaps it was growing up in the English seaside town of Portsmouth, with its mass concrete structures and naval warships that gave Matthew Hilton an appreciation for materials. Raised on a visual diet of strong, resilient...