November 19, 2025 | VOL 17
LUCAS MUÑOZ MUÑOZ: MATERIALS DON’T DIE
words Onur Baştürk
portrait photos Michelle Margot + Francesco Stelitano
As Design Mumbai returns for its second edition this November (26–29), the fair partners with THE Park Hotels to unveil an exclusive café by designer Lucas Muñoz Muñoz. Celebrated for his conceptual yet tactile approach, Muñoz will transform repurposed materials from the hotel group’s refurbishment projects into a temporary installation that questions what becomes of objects once they fall out of fashion — when something once considered iconic quietly loses its place in time.
Blurring the boundaries between craft, concept, and sustainability, the café reflects Muñoz’s ongoing fascination with giving materials a renewed sense of dignity and purpose. True to his process, the final outcome will take shape through what he’s given — spontaneous, imperfect, and deeply human. In our conversation, he opens up about the collaboration, the poetry of reimagining the old, and why design, at its best, should always stay in dialogue with time and place.
MATERIALS AREN’T BORN OR DIE AS WE BEINGS DO
Lucas, you’re designing THE Park Hotels Café for this year’s Design Mumbai. How did this collaboration come about, and what was the starting point for the project?
Design Mumbai approached me directly. After they visited my studio, we agreed to collaborate. Not long after, the opportunity arose to work together on creating THE Park Hotels café for the event. After a couple of meetings, we all realised that an experimental approach was exactly what we were looking for—so we decided to make it happen.
The café will be built using repurposed materials from the hotel group’s refurbishment projects. How did working with these materials shape your design approach?
Yes—that was the initial idea, and it will indeed be a defining part of the installation’s ethos. Repurposing materials and objects has been part of my professional practice for more than 20 years—it’s become something of a house trademark. But we’re also exploring other ideas to avoid repeating patterns and to test new strategies for a café space that exists only for a few days and leaves as little trace as possible once it’s taken down.
The project revolves around the theme of “a second life” for materials. What does this theme mean to you personally and within your practice?
I wouldn’t call it a “second life,” since materials aren’t born or die as we beings do. It’s more about giving them a purposeful time of presence within our context. Even a small human intervention gives a material a reason to remain—it prevents it from becoming waste or residue. When it has a function, it gains the respect of the community. It’s about dignifying objects and materials so they’re not perceived as outsiders.
INDIA’S INFLUENCE
How did the specific context of India influence your creative process? Did local culture or the way materials are perceived here bring new perspectives to your work?
I was fortunate to be part of the PUBLICA public art festival in Delhi nine years ago. For that installation, I spent about two months in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, working with students from the International Institute of Fine Arts in Modinagar. I learnt a lot about India—its incredibly strong craft culture—and I left the country full of jugaad energy (the art of makeshift, ingenious solutions).
A DIALOGUE OF MATERIALS
Collaboration and the idea of materials “speaking to each other” are central to your practice. Can you tell us more about this approach?
My career started as part of a collective studio, enPieza!, where I learnt that the wildest ideas are possible when you work as a group. Even though my name is now at the forefront of projects, that’s really the result of an evolution—from solo craftsman to leading large commissions. As my practice grew, I began calling on the best professionals I’d met and bringing their expertise into each new challenge. Then cross-pollination happens, and we make the project come alive together.
One of the key skills in this process is managing all those different personalities. With materials, it’s quite similar—some are more aggressive, some brittle, others more flexible or cooperative. It’s about understanding which combinations perform best for the purpose.
- The full interview is featured in our latest issue, Vol.17 -
