007Christophe Penasse: “Ana and I met at a
bar in Valencia, where she was working as a
waitress. I went in for a drink one night and
saw her there, and well, as they say, the
rest is history. We’ve been together ever
since.
We opened our studio together in 2010,
during the worst economical crisis to hit
modern Spain. Ana had just finished her
design degree and I was working for Makro,
a supermarket chain from Germany, but
wasn’t enjoying it. She needed work and I
wanted a change, so we decided to open a
design practice together.”
Ana Milena Hernández Palacios: “We were
completely crazy!’ (laughs). ”
CP: “It maybe wasn’t the best time to start
a studio, no, but we did it anyway. There
weren’t a lot of opportunities at the time,
especially in interior design. The few jobs
on the market were more technical, and
that has never been Ana’s strong suit. She
needs to be creating. So, we decided to
invent work for ourselves, and opened our
design studio. We started out designing low
cost houses and apartments. We were in
the middle of a crisis, so from a business
perspective, that was the direction that
made most sense to us.
“Our very first project was an apartment.
You can still see it on our website. We
aren’t very proud of it, design-wise, but
we keep it on our website because it
reminds us of where we started. It was an
important project for us because it made us
realise that the direction we were heading
in wasn’t the one we wanted. One day
the client came to us with a statue of an
animal, and we just knew we were done.”
AMHP: “We realised that residential design
is much more about decoration than design.
You need to adapt your style to match
that of your client’s, so in the end it’s very
difficult to be creative.”
CP: “From the moment we saw that statue
we knew we needed to focus our energy
on other things. We did everything, from
interiors, to graphic design to art direction.
We needed to build our portfolio in the
beginning, so we did whatever design jobs
we could get our hands on. Now that things
are different, and we have more choice, we
want to focus only on product and interior
design. That’s where our true passion lies.”
AMHP: “Those first years were horrible,
with very little money and a lot of work.
It was difficult, but we are what we are
today because of it; it’s part of our identity.
It’s really amazing to think how much has
changed over the last nine years. Things
have moved so fast. We started off just the
two of us, and now we’re a studio of nine
people!”
CP: “We’ve grown a lot, but we also want
to be careful not to grow too big. We can’t
do both, grow and be authentic at the same
time. Authenticity is something we think
about a lot these days, especially now that
we’re very busy.
“Lately we’ve been working on projectswith very fast turnarounds. For example,
we just started work on a new co-working
space in Madrid. It’s a massive project,
roughly 3,500sqm. We have only fifteen
days to develop and deliver a design. It’s
crazy. We’ve been waiting a long time for
this, so we are managing it and enjoying it,
but this isn’t ideally how we want to work.”
AMHP: “We’ve been very lucky to be able
to work on a number of big projects, but
moving forward we’d like to start doing
less. We want to focus our energy on being
more authentic, and to us that means
working with fewer clients. Fewer clients
means more time, and time is what we
need to reach the quality of designs we
ultimately want to be doing.”
CP: “Everything we do comes from Ana.
As the designer, she is behind everything
Masquespacio creates. But, she is also only
one person and can only handle a handful of
projects at a time.”
AMHP: “I have a team of assistants
helping me, but I am the one doing all the
designing. I think that’s one of the reasons
why people come to us. We give something
that is more personal. It’s created by one
person. Even if I could do fifteen projects
at a time, we’d risk losing something.
We would lose our focus and our soul as
Masquespacio.”
CP: “Ana and I are Masquespacio. We’re a
perfect team because we compliment one
another. She takes care of design and I do
all the communication and marketing. WeGrowing Small
Belgian-Colombian design duo Christophe Penasse and Ana Milena Hernández Palacios of Valencia-
based practice Masquespacio speak to Maria Elena Oberti about the perks of working in Spain and why
they believe that, when it comes to their success, more might mean less.
Images: Luis Beltran