A SECOND ITERATION OF 'FRAGMENTS' ON VIEW AT ALCOVA MILANO,2025.

ESTUDIO MATERIAL: THE BALANCE OF MANUFACTURING THE ORGANIC

05.01.2025

Interview by Ana Velasco
Images provided by Estudio Material

There is something wonderfully earnest about well-executed balance – a big rock perched atop a metallic structure, for example, could be imagined as something incredibly heavy and out of place, but instead comes off with a lightness and ease that makes you believe the rock rolled upon this base naturally.

For Damaso Mayer, designer and founder of Estudio Material, the contrast of creativity has always been the norm. Growing up in the countryside outside of Mexico City, he spent as much time honoring the abundance of the homestead his mom had created in their home, as well as getting lost in the maze of his father’s factory, recognizing the abundance of treasures found in both the organic and the manufactured. It was a seed firmly planted that led Damaso’s journey into studying industrial design in Monterrey, Mexico and then architecture in San Francisco, California, where he still lives and works.

Finding more interest in object design and the guidance of environment to inform those concepts, Damaso worked for many years at SurfaceDesign before branching off to create his own studio, Estudio Material. It was with the former where he first presented his work at Alcova Milano as part of Milan Design Week in 2024, before returning this year under his own studio to continue presenting his proposal and design thesis – working with local or environmentally sourced materials to recontextualize them into beautiful, one-of-a-kind pieces.

Damaso and I meet over zoom to discuss these prevalent themes in his work – a particular joy for me, as a fellow Mexican who has also counted California as home and has a particular affinity for rocks. Towards the end of our conversation I tell the designer that I myself am a rock collector and am surrounded by them in my home, to which he says that the rocks behind me are the first thing he noticed.

Ana Velasco: I understand your upbringing strongly informs your creative practice. Can you tell me about your upbringing in your own words?

Damaso Mayer: I grew up in the state of Mexico. My parents were both from Mexico City. They lived in El Pedregal, and my mom decided to move away, to raise me and my two sisters basically in the countryside. My grandfather had started a factory, which my father took over, and that factory was in a small town called Zinacantepec. My mom was very into the land, growing vegetables, corn, etc, and she has always had this interest for the organic.

So it was a funny upbringing because I was like 10 minutes away from the factory, which I often visited. It was kind of this crazy world of heavy machinery and raw materials and graphite everywhere. You couldn’t touch anything because you would get super dirty. And then going back home and everything was green and the air was super clean. At the time there was a river and it was just about being outside all day, every day. And I think, you know, that created a big contrast.

AV: It’s so interesting because there’s that dichotomy that you’re talking about, but also I think that there’s a connecting force of creation and creativity, even if it has a different aspect – the organic vs, the industrial. And obviously your work incorporates both now, but did you always have a very balanced relationship with the creativity of these two worlds? Or has that been a process in finding that in between for you?

DM: I’ve always been interested in creating since I was a kid. I would try to figure out how to make skate ramps and things for my own purposes, so I started going to the factory and seeing if they could weld some pieces of tubes that were lying around so I could create some rails. And that was my first step into talking to people, figuring out how things work, going to the carpenter and talking to him about it. I think that allowed me to understand how things were made a little bit. And, you know, also going to the factory and explaining to them, and relating to people, to their craft, to their work and appreciating that. Realizing my ideas were something that I couldn’t do by myself taught me how to relate to people, to explain a thought, explain an idea, and understand the material – sometimes I would try to do something out of something that wasn’t the right choice. So that gave me a little bit of an understanding of, okay, that doesn’t work like that. You know, you shouldn’t get fixated with this idea. Let’s try something else.

AV: You’re kind of speaking on this already, but I know that now a big part of your practice is using and seeking out discarded or unwanted materials. Did you always gravitate towards what others were not interested in?

DM: Yes, I think I always gravitated towards that. I don’t know if it was intentional or not – I don’t think it was.

But through walking in the factory and seeing all the scrap metal materials, and talking to people and asking, “Why is this not useful? What do you do with this?” They would sell them to a place that puts scraps in a container that then sends it to China for it to be recycled. And I was like, oh, well, I could use the larger stuff for something.

I studied industrial design and I think in the first semester I started making super strange Frankenstein-y looking lamps with, you know, a piece of tube that was lying around with a scrap piece of copper and like an off-cut. I made picture frames that are still at my parents’ house from gaskets – and they look…whatever, terrible. But I was drawn to it because there is so much potential, even in those materials. I was just interested in using that potential.

AV: I love rocks – I collect them and have them all over my house. I think they hold an energy and a history that is so special. How would you describe stone, your relationship to stone?

DM: I just think it’s an amazing material. I appreciate it because it’s impressive that it’s not made by humans. It’s a completely natural material that is insanely hard, extremely durable, and it’s, you know, I don’t know, it’s impossible to replicate. I mean, we try hard to replicate stone and to replicate the movement and the veining and all these layers, but those layers are a process that took millions and millions of years. So to me, it’s a super precious material.

And they have history – they’re a piece of somewhere. It’s part of the earth, part of the land. And that’s why I like local stones too, because they relate to the place where they are. I learned this also through landscape architecture, to use materials from the site that create a connection to the area, and maybe that connection was erased by, you know, bulldozing, etc. But by bringing those elements back we can create that connection again and the visual language that is from the place. However I wouldn’t say that the pieces can only belong where they’re from.

AV: Yes, stone changes the spatial energetics, and I think one of the things that’s really interesting about your work is the juxtaposition between the cleanliness of manufacturing, but then keeping stone largely in its rough shape. And I think juxtaposition is a very humbling thing to be around – honoring the creativity of the universe and then our role inside of that creation belt, where we can adapt other materials and create other materials. That symbiosis is something that I think we need to have.

DM: Yeah! And I think that’s where I’m very interested in leaving stone in its found condition. I don’t know if it’s out of respect, but I kind of don’t want to hyper-manipulate the stone to the point where it starts to lose its character. Like I’m not trying to shape the stone into this perfect oval shape and make it super shiny, because I feel like that starts to take away the visual impact and the power of that piece. It’s not a criticism of that work – it’s impressive and it takes an insane amount of time and dedication to shape a stone to whatever you want it to be. But for me…I want to work with what the stone is already.

'FRAGMENTS', SIDE TABLE, 2024

AV: How would you describe the ethos of Estudio Material?

DM: I think it’s about appreciation of things the way they are, and about seeing things in a different light. We see these materials all the time, but I think when you take them out of that context and you bring them into a different context, they start to highlight themselves. So I think it’s really about changing perspective.

AV: This is a bit of a chicken and egg question, but when looking at environmental or local materials to create with, do you let the findings inform your design or do you have a design in mind that you then go out and try to find something that approximates your vision, or a bit of both?

DM: I think it’s a bit of both, but the material really informs the design. There could be an idea…let’s say I wanna make a bench. Do you want the stone at the top or the bottom? But it comes from walking around the stone yard and looking at the materials and seeing what you can do with what piece. I let the material become the design and it always changes, and it always surprises me in a good way. I keep looking for that element of surprise for myself. I’ll go sourcing without anything, not even a sketch. I’ll walk the yard and see pieces and then I’m like, oh, that would be cool. And then I go back home and I’ll design and adapt. It’s kind of like pinball a little bit – you know where you’re trying to go generally, but you have to adapt and let go to let it take you there. I’m not trying to, I don’t try to force anything onto a design.

DAMASO MAYER AT SACCO NATURAL STONE YARD, ITALY

AV: Speaking of environments, you and your studio are based in San Francisco. How does its culture, its landscape, its history and its future inform the contrasts of organic, industrial, and manufacturing that you already had in your DNA?

DM: San Francisco is such a special city because it has everything within like five minutes of driving – it’s a huge influence. You have the heavy industry, the nautical industry, and you have the history of shipbuilding. You have the texture and the material of the bridges which is such a part of the landscape. The Golden Gate Bridge is like the most iconic thing – a hyper-industrial object that is inserted into the mountain. On one side you have the city, but as soon as you cross it you go through fog to be immersed in this forest and natural landscape. All these things are clashing against each other. I find beauty in it, in the contrast and accents of the industrial elements in the bay. I apply this in my own work, like inserting aluminum into rock. But the aluminum reflects the sky, so it blends in, and through the contrast it lets you appreciate other things as well.

AV: Many architects believe that good architecture blends and disappears into its environment instead of sticking out and disrupting what’s already preexisting. You’re speaking about the idea of using local materials, but also that the piece doesn’t need to stay in the place where it’s from for it to exist in harmony. Mobility is an obvious benefit that differentiates object design from architectural design. In your opinion, what makes good design?

DM: That’s a really good question. I’m just going to speak my mind because I don’t know what good design is like. I think it depends on the context because you might think something is not great because the placement of it is not great, not because the piece itself is not great. For me, taking things out of context makes them more interesting. Sometimes it makes them awkward or uncomfortable, but that’s sometimes what I hope they do, or what I’m interested in to capture my attention.

For example, steel furniture – it’s a super hard material, super industrial. And I like it placed in a home setting where everything else is soft, like your couch is soft, your rug is soft, your wood furniture has rounded edges and it’s super soft. So let’s put something that doesn’t make sense and see how that plays out. And that’s kind of where, back to what I was saying earlier, that I like sometimes to be surprised by things. Maybe not that the piece itself becomes a statement, but it may actually help you to appreciate everything that’s around it more. It may start a strange sort of tension with the softness of everything else where you start to appreciate the softness as well.