Rainey Richardson and Casey Brand explore the groundbreaking work happening at Cosentino this week, with a special focus on their latest product, ĒCLOS. During their visit to the company’s headquarters in Almeria, Spain, they had the pleasure of speaking with Valentin, a key leader in product development. He shares the vision behind ĒCLOS, highlighting its sustainable design and cutting-edge technology, engineered to overcome the limitations of current market offerings. 

Their conversation sheds light on Cosentino’s deep commitment to quality, sustainability, and innovation, while also showcasing the collaborative spirit of the team driving these advancements. Join Casey and Rainey as they dive into these ideas and discover how Cosentino is shaping the future of design and materials.

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Hi, I'm Casey.

And I'm Rainey. Welcome to the Reframing Design podcast. If you're a new designer, a seasoned designer, a homeowner, or a home enthusiast, you are in the right place.

We are going to talk about all things design. Our stories, our opinions, our experiences, and we're probably going to chase a few rabbits down a few rabbit holes.

But one thing we can guarantee, we will not talk about politics.

So we were recently in Spain, and we got to go to the headquart Cosentino, and we got to interview Valentin, who is one of the kings of Cosentino, in my mind, product development. And I can't even believe we got to interview him there.

It was just. It was so special because I think you and I had both taken a trip there previously and seen their incredible factory.

Factory doesn't even do it justice. It's a small village, really. I mean, they. What they had.

But getting to be there and then not only go, you know, with the people we got to go with, but to then get to have the time to interview Valentin and see their new product and hear about it and him.

And so why we're sort of speaking to this now is what you might hear is not all of the greatness, because our audio was not on point and maybe some of our video. But like we said before, we are designers.

We are not techies.

Techies. We are not. Nope. Ask my kids as they get frustrated watching me try to just use my iPhone. So we are. So we did the best we could.

And we hauled our equipment all over Europe for nine days.

And Raini really hauled it because I was on crutches and this bitch had this stuff in a bag all over Europe. She wouldn't let anybody else touch it.

Yeah.

So we are sorry. And mostly to Valentin, if his beautiful points and topics were not captured like they should have been.

But hopefully his, you know, his accent comes through loud and clear.

So darling. And so enjoy this podcast. We hope that it is as meaningful to you as it was to us. We are in Constantino, Ameria.

Almeria. Almeria. Almeria. Spain. Spain. They're their headquarters.

Did we just say we're in Spain?

And we get just as if it just rolled by. Not the jump. We are here at their headquarters just having the most incredible time. Right.

So I was here two years ago, and the amount of growth that has happened in two years, like, just makes your head specific.

Yeah. And what we've gotten to see. Yeah. And the truer ours was a dime. They're different.

And it sounds like eating yours was different from what I, you know, so they're constantly.

That's the beauty of why we're here and why we talk about them so much, is they're constantly innovating, changing and growing with where it needs to be in marks. Or maybe it didn't work. They're not stuck. They are not, you know, it's a hard surface situation. Right.

They're not stuck.

They're not hard. Right. In their growth. Yeah, it's beautiful.

So today we are talking. We're talking about Cosentino countertop material. They do natural stone.

They do sell and supply natural stone, but they also are really well known in our market for Soundstone and Duckton.

And we are here today to talk about a very new product. And this is so exciting because we did get to see it and we were the first one besides the design team. So that was very, very exciting.

And they're again, because they care and they want the best for that company. They were asking, you know what, this is going to go to production in a couple weeks. What do you think?

What do you guys think feel from seeing this declaration? Is it adding? Is it subtract? Like, where are we at? And so I think that's again, the beauty of why we use them almost 100%.

Because they listen to the design.

They want to know, because they know who. They want our clients to love it and use it anywhere they can.

And I know it's, you know, everybody knows it as a tower, but it's flooring or, you know, exterior wall cladding, interior wall cladding, shower floors, all these things. It's endless. People use them in their tables, you know, furniture.

So to have a company that wants to grow and make other people grow well is incredible.

It is really impressive. And I think you and I were just talking before we started taping. So it is the end of June, and this product is rolling out in September.

And so this podcast will not show be released until the end of September or early October just because they're keeping the product in a wrap until it's unveiled. So I think one of the things we're talking about is the feeling and the culture of this company.

And so we've been here for a couple of days, and every single person is always purposefully engaged in work and what they do. And they have very defined lanes, and it's very. They're very happy and seem very healthy. I mean, all of them. That's the part.

We met so many people that when they say Their age. It feels like they were maybe born, I don't know, last week or the week before. They're like 37.

Yeah.

And it just stopped with the company.

For 20 years and said, but you're only 20.

Yeah, you just were born. And I does spoke to the lifestyle, the, the commitment to the family.

Like we've discussed it, the, the enormity of size, of how much land this place takes over, and it's almost complete. It's sustainable from that ecology standpoint, it's huge. But they have medical onset for young people.

They have a bus that will pick them up in different areas if they, you know, don't live right in this town. To get them to work and not have that, you know, it just. Everything you do takes care of people in the most kind and generous way.

And it just shut up. So.

And the other thing that we were just talking about too, is if they don't get on a bus, then they're incentivized. If they have a car and they carpool, like I think it was three people to work then, then the company takes care of that. I mean, I mean, it's just.

It's just mind blowing. And also the kindness that they've shown us, the, the snacks that they've had and the, the, the coffee at the perfect moment gets whisked in, right?

And it's like in the meals we've had, I mean, every time if a.

Camera adds 10 pounds, Spain has added 50. So keep this in mind.

I don't need to be fine just.

Because you want to speak up, you know, I know. We're working on it.

Yeah.

Wine and food, the most beautiful wines.

And we laugh because we have. They have to now tell us.

We require them to tell us how much food is Kelly, because the first couple of meals they served us and we were like, okay, that was great. And we're ready to go. Like, we folded up our napkins, we're ready to leave, and they're like, oh, no, no. That was the first of five courses.

It's like what we were begging them.

To stop bringing food. Like it was. It's just been over the top. But have we said no to something?

No, no, no. And so we are going to get to interview Valentin, and he is sort of the genius, one of the geniuses of this brand.

So if you're a designer, a baby designer, experienced designer, a home enthusiast, we invite you today to our interview at Valentine and the new product.

Hello, welcome and thank you so much for being here with us. This is Valentine.

And what is your title, your official title?

Well, it's, it's a mix of positions where it's a pro, innovation and quality Vice president at Cosadilla.

Wow, amazing. Okay, so can you just walk us through where, when you kind of began here or just that that like how you got here and where you've evolved.

Found it. It was a, a long, long trip since I started here at the lab.

I'm working for Constantine almost 20 years already and my background is totally different to what I'm doing today. I'm a physicist, an electronic engineer and by chance I end up working here in in Nor and has been an awesome journey.

Oh my gosh, that is incredible. But it kind of makes sense to what you, what you are now creating.

That physicist background which I get the lens took all of the questions we're going to ask today. So you guys have a new brand under the Cosetino umbrella. Can you speak to us about this?

This new brand is Eclips and it's the. Our new baby. It's the result of trying to fix problems. And this is my background and this is the background of my team.

What we work on is trying to solve problems and give new solutions. And in the case of techcrust, we were looking for the perfect material for countertops.

Taking the best of Nectar and the rest of Silstem, blending them together and overcoming the limitations of wall products. So that's kind of the improvement of Tektor sandstone for countertops.

So under the, just to be clear, under the umbrella of Cosentino there is Sil Stone and there is Depton and now we're going to have enclosed.

That's right.

And so tell me about when your team sat down or how you decided we need another product that is a brand. And this is the problem that this brand is specifically going to address.

All products have a life cycle. When they are moving, they become exciting and fresh and designers want to use it.

But after some time if you're not able to upcycle them and adding new features and adding new aesthetics, they start to decline and become obsolete. Samsung is a product 30 years old. Dekton is already 12 years old. Time flies.

Almost a teenager.

And when we were thinking about how to make this new generation of product, the brief was let's do something that is impressive in terms of aesthetics, that overcomes the limitations that you have both in Decto and Saltstone. Let's make something that it's high performing for countertops because you want something that it's very durable.

I mean best in class in terms of sustainability, best in class in terms of health and safety. And putting all of that together, we realized that we have something really powerful in our hearts and it deserve a new category, a new brand.

So to that, to this, best in class and sustainability and all of those things, you guys are essentially fully sustainable here at Cosetino. And can you just tell like because we can't even get the enormity. We've seen it.

A couple of people that had the opportunity to be here a couple times and walk us through that. Even the mounds outside. Yeah, that will become something someday.

You know, it's. I love to talk to designers, architects. It's part of my job, just feeding myself with all these stories around this narratives.

And one of the things that you value the most is what's behind the product, how it's made, what energy you use to produce. It works. And that's also a strong motivation to differentiate ourselves.

I like to say that it's not just about what it's about how, and in this, how we have spent thousands of research and development hours in how we could make a product that was more sustainable with a smaller impact in environment, with a smaller carbon footprint. And one of the things that first came to our mind is that why should we take new raw materials from a quarry?

If you could use something that you give already a second life, a second chance.

And it's not just that you are using something that otherwise would be a problem, it's just that you're not taking a new raw material and it makes some sense.

But in terms of energy, water, emissions and everything, us as a company, we have been always very proud of having best available technologies always in place. And many times you have to choose do you take right side of the road or left side of the road?

And what guide us is that we, we want to have a positive impact in, in society and environment. And I don't know many companies say that, but we really need this.

That's what is so special and what I think people when they are going and looking for, you know, there's lots of pretty products out there, but to that, that, that is so important to us right now. And I think it, well, it should be important to all the time.

But we really are looking at, down the road of what we're doing to our environment in a really upfront way right now. And so you guys have been doing this though. This isn't like you just jumped on the bandwagon.

You have been doing this has kind of been your culture since the beginning and that's what is so impressive.

You cannot fake it because you really notice when you don't have this authenticity.

And you can have a very nice catalog and you can have a very nice website, but with your scratch you really notice which companies really believe in that and which companies are doing that because it's trendy or fancy or. I want to intersee as a sustainable company, but all these decisions that you take day by day.

If I put it in terms if you are not when you can choose this raw material that it's very cheap but it's coming from a not so thin source, or you can choose this one that it's maybe a little bit more expensive, but you are going to work hard to make it competitive and use something that has a smaller impact.

It's so easy.

It's like it's really in your DNA and you can see it and feel it when you're here. So I have two questions about the new brand Equos.

Number one, what are the recycled materials that are in the product and how long did it take you to develop this new product?

Well, first thing is that Eglos it's products and we hope to last long, long time. So what I thought is what we have done in this first collection, but we had the gate open to add new stuff for the future collection.

So mainly what we are using here as a recycled content is a recycled glass. And this glass is coming from glass industry, so it's coming from first consumer recycled glass.

And the key thing here is that to make it at a constantine scale you need big amounts of material. So you have to work with suppliers so they can provide you with the right amount of material with the right quality of materials.

Let's say a month. No, no, I said a year. And I live. And I need a completely different scale because of the size of what we do on the scale of Constantino.

So first things that they scratch their fingers. Look, I'm gonna make 5,000 of this every month. And you have to find them, you have to invest with them, you have to implement the technology.

So they can classify, they can filter, they can team and they can become a provider in such a scale. And I think that it has some merit because it's, you know, there are some sense in the world today that big companies are able, only small companies.

Graph machine is very true and something but you want to have an impact, you have to work a scale. So it's okay. It's very worth to remark that we all have to do our part. But if you are recycling 500 kilos of raw material, it's fine.

But when you are recycling 50,000 tons of raw material, it's a different scale central thing.

How long did it take you to develop this technology for this new brand?

In fact, here in the process already of developing this, we started like because you know, in R and D, especially when you are working in cutting edge technology, it's not the last mile, it's everything that you have had to do before. So we started to work with recycled materials maybe 10 years ago and we started to work with, you know, full body decoration techniques 15 years ago.

And now at some point they coalesce into something new and probably the last sprint. It has been like one year and a half. But only because we have made all this background job for long, long time.

And now as I said, it's an endless game. I like to say that we play infinite games because it's just that we are finishing a program.

We are thinking how to improve it for the next time or how could. How we could make it with a smaller impact on how we could use more recycled content or how we could use less water in the process. So it never.

It's just that this is where we have reached today, but now we are working tomorrow. So.

And so with this new product within Eclos and how the you. The technology that now it is through the sector so explains to people so they can understand.

You know, before with Daxault just sent on rolling silent but you couldn't integrate these other things because it wasn't altogether. Can you kind of speak to that? Because I think that's something that is going to be super impactful rather than the natural stones.

One of the of the key things here was that how do you make something better in terms of design? And we had a tech tool which is creating surface decoration and then we have a sensor which is grading full body decoration.

What happens if we mix both and we have something that is creating full body and it's creating on surface. But now the challenge is how you mix them up. So it's not a mess. Sometimes the engineers like to use all the levers at the same time.

And we screwing up because it's just something that. It's worse when you put everything together. You have that separate apartment.

But here with across the big effort it's been how you can blend both technologies and they feel natural and they integrate well. And it has been a lot of work. As opposed about how you play with the translucency of the raw materials.

How you play with this inks that penetrate into the material with the full body effects that to have some type of synchronization with what you have.

And it was very, very sad and very funny because it was like we were amazing ourselves with all the things that we were doing because it was unexpected. And it was like the guy that came and said, you know, look at what we have been able to do.

And I have mixed this type of resin with this type of ink and this type of finish and was like a discovery process for us.

How exciting is.

That's the tree. I mean we want the technology of course, but the end of the day it still has.

It has a. We like. We like the.

This technology. And I like to tell that to my team. It needs to look for something.

Yeah, I love that. Yes.

Are these going to come in different thicknesses?

Yeah, we are going to start with 2 cm and 3 cm. The main application of this probe. We think ceramic countertops. These are the most common thicknesses.

I think one of the things that wowed us all is to hear you can now take that pot off the stove and put it right on the counter. Which I think is a question we get asked all the time. People have forever.

You know there was other product natural that had and so this will be able to handle that. Which is.

I always say though I always say of course you can do that. That breath best practice is hotline just it's like will we ever get over protecting? Why do we need to have that effect?

Right. You don't have to do that anymore. Three things.

That is when this work started like 20 and a half two years ago. It was like we were overwhelmed with all the.

All the checks that we had to in our checklist sales team and needs to be isn't product needs to be heat resistant. It needs to be pooperia needs to be zero silica needs to be. And it was like you don't even know what you're asking.

At some points on this point I thought that it was impossible that we were not going to be able to meet all the requirements at the same time.

And you did.

So I remember that Paco Pinar Deluardo asked me, honestly, are we going to make it? And my answer was, I don't think that we are going to make it. Probably we have some features and some collections and some other features in Sabale.

And it was, you had to make it up for everything. And the biggest challenge because it was at some point like, okay, if I want to get this property, then I have to sacrifice this other right.

And I'm getting the balance of, you know, you want it to be heat resistant and you want to look nice and you want it to be full body and you want it to be recycled. And it was like if, just if it was well recycled, I could get it, I could cut everything else. That's what it's like. It's just stopping me to.

And they glazed over the point that zero silica. Zero silica, yeah. That is incredibly impactful. We learned yesterday that in Australia you cannot have silica in products anymore.

And so that was really interesting to me how you guys just were able to meet a niche that it didn't exist, right? And now it does, you know, and.

We started with this whole project of migrating our material to this less crystalline silica content, even though the regulation at this point was not there, even though we knew in the very beginning that if you work with the material in the wet way, you don't need it. But we were also conscious that, you know, wall is big, not everybody put the measures and saves to fabricate the material.

You know, in places like North America, there's a lot of people with very low skill, very low training that are doing this job.

So as a responsible company, the way to go was that we made the best we could, even though it was more expensive, even though it was more difficult for the facilities to work with the material at the beginning. But it's this long term mentality of the company. So the good thing is that when this challenge to go to zero came to us.

We have made a lot of homework before because we already were in the Q10 and Q4. So we take advantage of this wave and we went on this way to get to the zero silta.

So we want to get to know Valentin a little bit.

So we want to ask you a.

Few questions about your interests, your family. So I know you have a little boy. How old is he?

One year and a half.

One year and a half. And you are a drummer, you play the drums. And I know we had dinner together at cnext. You were telling us that he loves.

To play the drums.

Is he getting better?

Hit as much as you can, as fast as you can. So it's funny because one of the things that obsessed me when I knew I was going to be a father is that I want to share things with my kids.

So playing sports is one thing, but music was one of these things that I think that makes people better. Arts in general makes people better.

But I wanted to share something with the boy and I think that one better than something that he can play from the very beginning. So just now he's. That's the side effect. Now he's keeping everything he sees just see this.

He might come up with something. He wants to make every video, but he might create a new sound. Yeah, I mean, yeah, just.

And now he plays all the time with, you know, the knives and forks and everything that can make noise. He hits everything to make noise. So even if we have a future.

Drummer creating something for sure.

And your wife, is she completely on board and loves.

She's as well that lovely mother. She's a very patient. Far, far more than me lose patience far easier than she.

That she's supportive also this way of making things together and enjoying our time together.

So to that what. How do you. So as a family, what do you guys like to do? I mean, you guys live in such a beautiful place.

You know, we. We like sports, we like hiking, we like traveling. We are this type of people that we like to do things all the time.

And now with our kids, we are a little bit limited, but we try to do these kind of things that we used to do and make the kid to be powerful. So if we travel, we know that we cannot be working around the sea 12 hours a day. In the morning we go to the city.

In the afternoon we go to a park and play with the kid. And we try to have the family being part of these experiences.

What is your favorite place that you've ever traveled to?

Very good question. You know, it all depends on how you make this trip and what's your mood and what's the. The moment you are living at this point.

So for example, when I was single, I remember traveling to Los Angeles in Peru and I enjoyed a lot Timbing Monta and some sleeping night sky and.

But for example, going with friends to Croatia and find a band, 10 friends moving around the country in Lublin Being with my wife in Gendan with a motorbike, going into a country in Dublin too. So it depends on the moment you are.

That's what people send me. That's a great answer. That is a great answer. Yeah.

So a couple years down the line from now, you look at this new brand and how you see it in comparison and how many collections do you kind of envision coming render?

One of the things that they are trying now is to organize ourselves because there's so many brands, so many colors. We have realized that sometimes we are overwhelming customers. New launches every season and new products, new applications.

And at some point not even our own people, it's able to digest so much innovation. So what we're trying to do is just be more surgical and just doing whatever we think it's going to work in this moment and no more than that.

And I think that the path of trying to become a little bit more simple in what we do, a little bit easy to communicate with customers, a little bit more focused, it's the way to work. In which direction, I have no clue.

Because what we have learned, what I have learned in my career after 20 years working in innovation, is that what I have planned to make five years ago never ends up happening. Because things change, market changes.

And you can anticipate, you can predict, but you have to assume that you are going to fail much more times than you are going to have success. So what we try is to be fast, be flexible. So you try many things. Doesn't work, you keep on doing and doesn't work. Just go.

Don't keep finding nothing. Don't keep on being square peg, ram hole kind of thing. Yeah.

So back to. I was going to ask one more personal question because I'm always fascinated by what makes sense. People here actually have two questions.

Your favorite cuisine and what are you reading right now?

Right now I'm reading a book to draw my nephew about the Camino de Santiago Santiago route and bring it because it's brought by my nephew. So I have to bring it. And I'm having a lot of fun about it.

But I always like to read things that has nothing to do with what I do just to open my spot.

So recently I read a book about how all the DNA evolution in bioengineering has arise in the last years and all this crispr technology and so on, because at some point you realize that things are away from your business can help you out more than what it's in your business, which is all the time the same. So it doesn't bring firsthand. It's just talking to the people around you in your business. It's always the same type of things.

When you look into different fields, it brings new stuff. Maybe you can use just 2%, but it's 2 more percent.

And then it just getting yourself outside of that constant discussion here, it gives you freedom to then maybe see this a little differently, to make all those four things come together.

Exactly.

You know, So.

I love cooking. This is one of my favorite things. But now it's such a stressful life. One year and a half kid. I'm specializing now. It's a dual cooking. 10 minutes.

That's.

So I try to eat healthy, I try to eat tasty. But needs to happen. The whole thing needs to happen in 10, 15 minutes.

And you have. You garden, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think I thought I remembered you telling me.

Yeah. And that's something that, to be honest, now I'm killing more plants than usual because I don't have time to pay attention.

But it's something that it really releases stress. It makes you connect with nature, gives you a feeling of proud when you see new plants growing.

And I try to keep on coming back to it as soon as I can spend some time there.

So at this time of the year, what's coming up? Is it tomatoes or.

No, it's more about cactus.

It's the thing that I like the most, and I have no idea how you say that in English, but we have chubos, which is something that goes out of this cactus. It's like a very juicy fruit. That's kind of what it's coming up.

So what's something that maybe we don't know? I mean, there's a question. What's something that you're like, actually, and I also love.

You know, that's one thing that I would like to remark is that I'm here doing this interview, but I'm representing a big team of people working on that. And sometimes it's that people are intrigued about who is behind this, who is the mastermind. Thinking about that.

And it's a joint effort of many, many people who are working very hard in doing this.

And I'd like to remark that because sometimes we forget about doing research, recognition, but there's many, many people that it's behind a company like Cosentino, that maybe they never go to a podcast, they would never be interviewed for a magazine, but that we are sold and we are in the spirit of discovery.

So, yeah, that's a great. Thank you so much for joining us. We do know that you're very busy and your time is incredibly valuable and so.

So thank you to you and the team and Cosentino, thank you very much.

And all that. This has been incredible.

Yeah, I feel very comfortable.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

That's a wrap for this episode of the Art of Interior Design. We hope you had a blast and found some inspiration to bring your dream space to life. Feeling inspired to start your own home transformation?

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