Porcelanosa and Guell Lamadrid recently invited us to lead a CMF trend session (color, materials, finish) at Porcelanosa’s showroom, designed for a select group of architects and interior designers. Here’s a summary of the key activities and insights from the co-branding event:

1. Two CMF Trends for 2025

Theme: POLITOPIA

• Macro Trends: Urbanization and Neo-Ecology
• Session Duration: Trend Talk of 40 minutes
• Content:
  • Discussion on color, material, and finish trends for 2025.
  • Exploration of the reasons behind designers’ and consumers’ preferences for certain color palettes and materials.

2. Translation of Material Boards

• Purpose:
  • To bridge the gap between abstract trends and tangible design applications. Seeing materials on a screen reaches an intellectual level, but touching them has a whole different cognitive function.
• Activity:
  • We created four sample boards in advance using materials from Guell Lamadrid and Porcelanosa, reflecting the two main CMF themes presented before.
• Themes:
  • Urbanization: The Pursuit of Delight theme embraces joyful design attributes with a touch of rebellion and wanting to bring to life projects that are not necessarily commercial only but allow free expression and personal language. We translated that idea into innovative material solutions Porcelanosa offers, complemented by some of Guell Lamadrid’s bold, joyful, and graphical prints.

• • Neo Ecology: Living Organisms invites us to consider how we can upcycle, repurpose, or grow elements of nature. Our translation into material boards had a wider context, and we brought samples that eluded nature at its best.

3. Emotional Materiality

• Focus:
  • Examination of the emotional responses elicited by different materials through dynamic exercises working with pen and paper.
• Key Questions:
  • How does a material speak to you when you 1) see it and when you 2) touch it? Is there a different response?
  • What emotions does the same material evoke in two different people?

4. BRINGING TO LIVE FICTIVE PROJECTS

• Focus:
  • Every participant picked a few materials with no concrete goal and had to collaborate with other creatives to visualize a project based on color and materials research. At the end of the session, every group presented their ideas and explained how and why specific materials influenced their decisions.
• Key Questions:
  • Can we invert the process and start a project, having selected the materials first?

5. TAKING HOME A MATERIALS BOX

Every participant could pick the samples we saw during the session and create an individual box with their liked samples.

This event highlighted the importance of understanding and anticipating design trends while emphasizing materiality’s role in evoking emotional responses.