Jorge Penadés has whipped up an impressive array of accolades since graduating from Madrid’s Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in 2014. Not only has the young designer collaborated with fashion house Hermès, he has a spot in the permanent collection at the Vitra Design Museum, and recently received the AD Nuevos talentos Award from Spanish Architectural Digest magazine for the best emerging design studio in 2017; not a bad start to the year by any measure.
From his studio in Madrid, Penadés cultivates a dissident approach to the contemporary notion of design, auditing unorthodox ideas in order to generate non-standard logics and provide alternative opportunities. His Structural Skin collection is one such project; waste scraps of leather, a byproduct of the fashion industry, transformed into an innovative new material.
Structural Skin first came to light in 2015, with a side table series that was followed by a mirror for Villa Noailles (in collaboration with Hermès, who supplied the offcuts) in 2016. At this year’s Milan Design Week, Penadés released two new collections of mirrors and table lamps; adding to his portfolio of pioneering product design.
Made from his singular structural skin, LED light tubes, and aluminium, the designer continues to explore materials and surfaces, this time applying his experimental approach to a collection of table lamps that are based on the intersection of different planes; emphasising the patterns and textures that are created with his unique self-produced material.
Jorge Penadés’s Structural Skin table lamps are available by commission in any colour combination.
Photography, Brenda Germade
