Maneki. © Sarah Babineau

Lambert Rainville and Nicholas Sangaré founded their Montreal-based eponymous office in 2015. Both with backgrounds in industrial design, their studio transverses scales, designing everything from spoons to commercial spaces. The duo, whom recently won the 2017 Phyllis Lambert Grant given to Québécois architects, designers and creative professionals for exhibiting exceptional quality in their work, reflect on their design practice below.

How many people are in your practice?

We are a small office of four: two partners and two employees.

Why were you originally motivated to start your own practice?

There are a few reasons that motivated us. The main one was to be able to pursue our own creative vision whilst contributing to the local design culture. Nicholas had been working as a professional for a couple years when he approached Lambert to be part of the adventure. We studied together and collaborated while we were completing our undergraduate industrial design degree, so we knew we had complementary skills and were a perfect match! 

What hurdles have you come across?

So far, we’ve been lucky, no major hurdles. Projects are coming our way and managing growth is a challenge for two creatives. We always try to organize internal structure but working as much as possible as a team seems to be the best solution, since we are only four people! Keeping up with the pace of projects while investing time to care for the office is a delicate enterprise.

You both have backgrounds in industrial design and you work across many scales. How do you think this background informs your architectural work? 

Nicholas studied architecture before industrial design, which enriches the vision between scales of objects and of spaces. When working together, Nicholas establishes the global vision and operates the projects, while Lambert refines the furniture, the details and the material palette of a given space.

The value is that their «look and feel» is unique to the brand and difficult to copy.

Being industrial designers brings us closer to the reality of manufacturing. The benefit for our clients is that we understand how things are made and our solutions are mostly realistic and cost saving. It also gives us the opportunity to design custom furniture or architectural elements because we work often and closely with the local industry. Since we decide to design instead of picking out of a catalogue, the spaces we create offer a unique character. This is true for residential and commercial projects. For commercial clients, the value is that their «look and feel» is unique to the brand and difficult to copy.

Is scaling up a goal or would you like to maintain the size of your practice?

Becoming a hundred employee office is not the goal ! The most important for us is to work on projects we care for and that we feel we are contributing to the discussion of design.

What are the benefits of having your own practice? And staying small?

We believe it enables us to work with a clientele with interesting projects and on a fair budget. Which makes us work to find solutions as a team. We all sit and work on the same table, sometimes it’s hectic, but everyone knows what is going on, for better or for worse!