Interview with Thiago Mondini

I started my company in 2007 focusing on residential projects. Soon afterwards, in 2008, the first corporate project was commissioned and, with this commission, my studio was open to other commercial and public designs. This led to a high diversification of activities, helping with a constant renewal of thoughts and conceptions. Nowadays I focus once again on residential projects, specially because it is possible to know and understand other realities through this kind of work.

Design is a solution to any problem in a way that is at the same time functional, beautiful and meaningful.

I have naturally specialized in residential design. To design houses and residential interiors is a fantastic way to understand other ways of living and to enhance the life of a person or a family.

It was a Café downtown in Blumenau. It was unfortunately never built.

I have always been more creative in the night, normally after midnight. That’s the time when new ideas flow loosely in my mind

I like my designs to have a meaning for my clients. This means I must understand my client’s life and references before the creative process. It is useless for ant design to be functional, beautiful but meaningless. It is the meaning that makes a designalive. And this meaning is a very subjective matter.

A design is successful when the users can have an emotional attachment to it. It is very important for a design to be useful and beautiful, but it’s the emotion that brings the ultimate success.

A designer should always understand the overall reality of a society. We are often deceived by false perceptions of a niche reality, as we frequently deal with high standards. But it's very important to understand how privileged our clients can be to be able to choose having a good design. Unfortunately, most of the population of the world can’t have access to the best standards of architecture and design. However, even when there is no access to what we understand as “high-end”, there is always the human expression through culture, tradition and non-mensurable emotional elements.

After a long period believing that function is the primordial element of a good design, I feel that finally we are all understanding that the true element of design is emotion, in all different aspects that emotion can be achieved. The future is unpredictable, but I'm sure design will be each time more integrated in the daily solutions, in a way that could be very silent, but always very meaningful.

Balance of form and materials is essential in any design.

Knowledge of proportions, knowledge of balance. A good overall knowledge of disciplines as art, music, construction, nature and history. Being curious and restless in seek of a good solution is mandatory.

I create all the basis of any design by myself. I have some collaborators that help me produce the technical drawings, material lists and budgets. But all the main creative work of my office is very personal.

Through my site www.thiagomondini.com.br, through my Instagram account @thiago_mondini