Gerard Sanmartí graduated as an interior designer from the ELISAVA School in Barcelona.
Gabriele Schiavon graduated as an architect from the University of Venice (IUAV).
Gerard and Gabriele met at Oliviero Toscani’s Benetton Factory in Italy, where they became friends and decided to embark on their own business project dedicated to interior design, graphic design and industrial design.
In 2002, they founded Lagranja Design studio, based in Barcelona and subsequently Istanbul in 2013, Singapore in 2018 and currently based in Hong Kong.
Lagranja is renowned for its multidisciplinary work in interior and product design. Always consistent with their philosophy and far away from trends, at Lagranja, Gerard Sanmartí and Gabriele Schiavon support companies and brands to construct their projects.
Loyal to their ideas and strategies, the co-founders confirm: “We believe that every project is unique and has to be approached in a different way. We try to understand the context, we ask many questions, to ourselves and also to our client, we map out a strategy, we look for the right tools and the right team. And we let things come into being.”
In this way, they design functional and practical pieces that satisfy the needs of the client. Together, with their slogan “specialising in not specialising”, they have worked on furniture, product, colour and space projects, all of them sharing a common character. Simple but quirky, they find a way of creating objects that showcase their passion.
Highlights of their projects in the hospitality industry include Chic & Basic in Barcelona, The Populist in Istanbul, the Paragon Watch Gallery in Tianjin, China, and Pur-Impur, the latest restaurant from Nandu Jubany in Barcelona.
The talent of Gerard Sanmartí and Garbiele Schiavon of Lagranja Design has been recognised with various national and international awards such as the Red Dot Award (2007), City of Barcelona Design Award (2008), IDEA Award (2008), Via Award (2009), IIDA Excellence Award from the International Interior Design Association-USA (2009) and the ADI-FAD Silver Delta Award (2012).
Since 2002, Gerard Sanmartí has combined his professional career as an interior designer with teaching at the ELISAVA and IED design schools and international workshops. From 2001 to 2011, intermittently, Gabriele Schiavon has combined his work with the position of lecturer in universities of art and design, such as the IUAV, the IED in Barcelona and the EINA School.
They are authors of the Key bicycle rack (2007), winner of the Red Dot Award (2007) and the City of Barcelona Design Award (2008). It is a piece that stands out owing to its friendly lines and its intention of humanising the city through being an element that is sensitive to the bicycle frame and pleasing to the touch.
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