November 21, 2017

Masquespacio’s Vibrant Valencia Outpost for Doctor Manzana

Creative consultancy Masquespacio was born during the financial crisis, in 2010. “I wanted to explore my creativity, and most of the available jobs were related to doing technical drawings,” says Ana Milena Hernández Palacios, who had recently graduated with an interior design degree. She initially enlisted marketing exec Christophe Penasse to help with her business plan, but things soon morphed. “We started meshing our two areas of expertise in order to design unique projects that target a particular customer base,” Penasse says. The couple approaches their work—which extends from interiors to art direction—from a strategic branding perspective. They even have a furniture off-shoot, Mas Creations.

A curtain behind the cash and information desk hides storage. Photography by Luis Beltran.

The award-winning team recently finished a smartphone repair and gadget store named Doctor Manzana, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Spanish word for apple. To reinforce the brand identity, the bustling space references tech via abundant use of 54-degree angles (the viewing angle of certain touch screens) on floors, ceiling, and walls. Colors throughout were chosen to entice tech-seeking shoppers: “salmon for fashionistas hunting the newest and coolest, and purple for geeks,” they say. The blue/green refers to hospitals—in this case, one that will operate on your injured phone.

The workshop where the “doctor” discusses technology and new products is furnished with stools by Mas Creations. Photography by Luis Beltran.

> See more from Interior Design’s list of 40 up-and-comers

> See more from the November 2017 issue of Interior Design

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