#Product Trends
Q&A: The New Lighting Collection for Mantra Designed by Santiago Sevillano Studio
The design firm based in Valencia, Spain has just unveiled an illuminating collection of lamps and lighting pieces, exclusively designed and developed for Mantra.
Spanish design studio Santiago Sevillano has recently launched the new lighting collection for lighting firm, Mantra. The collection includes the iconic Collage wall lamps, Minimal standing lamps, Himalaya ceiling lamp and Vector standing lamps.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine spoke with the firm’s CEO and founder Santiago Sevillano and discovered that each piece in the collection has its own unique and illuminating characteristics that change the ambiance of any space in an instant.
Here is the exclusive interview with Sevillano:
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Can you share with us the design process of your studio?
Sevillano: Everything starts with a dialogue with the client. Clients ask for something different. When going for work and business, they ask for something new, something fresh. They want to take the personality of how they are or what their brand is like. We want to make something different.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: How did the design collaboration start with Mantra?
Sevillano: We have been with Mantra for 20 years like a family, our brands have a lot of history together. We bought 60 percent of products from Mantra. It made me see the company from another point of view. I could see the opportunities because Mantra has so many kind customers that give stability, what we also have to keep in mind is flexibility as an international brand. The customers range diversely because right now in our website we have clients visiting from China, Japan, North America, South America and Europe. What working with international clients means is that it makes it interesting to think about ways of essential communication. The basic and core elements of the new collection with Mantra was that the pieces of the collection need to be something essential, iconical and beautiful.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Can you tell us more about the lighting collection for Mantra and share the inspiration behind each of the lamps?
Sevillano: For the Collage lamp – it was inspired by circular geometry patterns. I was inspired by pop art. Using points, patterns and lines. Here we have a furrow for instance in Valencia. On the other side, we had to make something modular. The first try of the model was to make some kind of dimensions of the circles and make a bridge to connect them. In order to be very flexible, I want to make walls like ceilings, like a wall mural, a painting, something customized put in the frame of the wall surrounded by light. It is very difficult to set up the lighting, we go to make up the ceiling in very different dimensions. It lets us combine the space and of collage.
For the Himalaya lamp – The inspiration for this ceiling piece came while working with a Chinese lighting company. It is the color , the light intensity that can be changed . Mantra asked to develop a new concept and this was it, a lamp with changing light intensity.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: What materials did you use for the lamp collection for Mantra?
Sevillano: For the Himalaya ceiling lamp, it combines an aeration system with an LED luminaire with adjustable colour and light intensity, which you can control from your remote, app, or voice assistant. My main point while creating the Himalaya lamp was to integrate the fan lighting .With the light , one of the things is to dress the light. 20 years ago we dressed it with glass . We also had to keep in mind that the light uses LED, and that this is essentially integrated.
The Minimal lamps are built to be placed side to side, and also as table lamps for living areas. We tried to see how to use less material in order to make the Minimal table lamps.
The Collage wall lamp as we all know is an iconic lamp that can be used in home, commercial and office spaces. It comes in white, black, and gold. Aluminum is the material that is chosen for the Collage lamp because it makes the lamplight and easy to move and also easy to paint.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Did you develop the smart technology that is installed in the Himalaya lamp in the Mantra collection or did you partner with a smart tech firm to install this?
Sevillano: The smart technology was developed by our partner based in China. Their design for the system of the lighting is more convenient and easy. You can control it with your mobile phone, with remote control. The system is really convenient. When you are at home and sitting down, you do not want to go manually to another room to switch off the lights, you can use the mobile phone in order to switch on/switch off. The Himalaya lamp could be controlled by Bluetooth or wifi.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Can you share with us your design projects at the moment and what’s in store for your studio in 2021?
Sevillano: This year we had a lot of plans of showing our collections in events and fairs, but due to the pandemic, all is canceled. We were working with the furniture association in Spain, and we were thinking of making a showroom, a pop-up in every city, but it was canceled. We have been in the design business for 14 years already in Valencia and we know the people. For now, we are designing new high-end furniture and outdoor collections for clients here in Valencia and in other countries. And we are also designing and developing easy lightings for walls for Mantra.
The lighting collection for Mantra was launched in October of this year and is available on the Santiago Sevillano website.
