Diogo Mendes - Marketing Coordinator
José Almeida - Product Designer
Luís Fernandes - Technical Designer
Based in the industrial heart of Northern Portugal, Domkapa was founded on the conviction that the most meaningful furniture is born from the hands of artisans. The brand bridges craftsmanship with a contemporary design language, focusing on the intricate dialogue between material and comfort. The new Elliot armchair serves as a testament to this philosophy—a piece in which complex, hand-finished curves meet an uncompromising ergonomic embrace, ensuring that "Made in Portugal" remains a mark of soulful, lasting quality.
01 Origin. What problem, frustration, or quiet conviction made your company/product(s) necessary? Take us back to the moment the idea wouldn't leave you alone.
When I first joined Domkapa, there was something I couldn't shake: an enormous potential was being quietly wasted by design inconsistencies built up over time. It wasn't a lack of talent or ambition. It was more like an orchestra playing in different rooms, each with its own acoustics, and never quite reaching the audience as one sound. That frustration became the fuel for everything that followed. Over the next few years, we pushed through a deep transformation of the brand: redesigning products, building a more cohesive and honest visual identity, and simplifying processes that had grown without much direction. The goal was never change for the sake of change. It was about making sure what Domkapa had to offer finally reached people with the clarity it deserved.
José
02 The constraint that shaped it. Every well-made object is defined as much by what it isn't as what it is. What was the hardest constraint you worked within, and how did it sharpen the final product?
The primary constraint in the development of the Elliot Armchair was integrating mechanical functionality (360° swivel and recline) into the model's aesthetic language.
From the outset, the goal was to create an armchair with both presence and a restrained and elegant aesthetic. The major challenge was incorporating functions such as rotation and recline into that balanced aesthetic. Such functions typically make furniture appear heavier and more visually cluttered; these mechanisms are inherently 'intrusive' solutions. In the early prototypes, this was evident: the armchair lost its lightness and aesthetic balance.
The ultimate feat was transforming the technical complexity of the mechanisms into discrete features that didn’t interfere with the armchair's lines. It was precisely these limitations that provided the aesthetic clarity and technical rigor of the final product.
Luís
03 A design decision you defended. Walk us through one choice that was questioned, debated, or pushed back on, and why you held the line.
Another pivotal shift involved moving away from loose seat and back cushions. While they were originally intended to lend a more versatile, domestic feel, our prototyping revealed a persistent disconnect between the cushions and the shell. It felt as though we were forcing a concept that simply didn't belong.
By integrating the cushions directly into the fixed structure, we achieved a seamless silhouette that flows naturally into the shell, allowing for greater technical rigor in the seams’ alignment and a more consistent level of comfort.
In the end, this wasn't about simplifying for the sake of simplifying; instead, it was about bringing our technical execution into perfect alignment with the aesthetic vision that we had from the start.
Luís
04 What you removed. Form and Function lives in what's left after the cuts. What did you take out, leave on the cutting room floor, or refuse to add?
Every project has that one idea that you fall in love with too early on in the process. You sketch it; you model it; you lose sleep over it; and somewhere deep down you already know it's going to be a problem to produce. But you push on anyway because that's part of the process. Eventually, the material or the machine or the timeline makes the decision for you. And honestly, some of my favorite pieces exist because of such forced edits. The version that makes it to production has a clarity the original lacked because the final version has been through something. I've stopped seeing the cutting room floor as a place of failure. It's more like a research archive. Everything there taught me something, even if it didn't make it into the work.
José
05 What's next, and what stays the same? Where is the brand going from here, and what will never change about how you make things?
We are moving towards an even deeper fusion of contemporary design and uncompromising comfort. For us, a piece only succeeds if it delivers a superior and inviting experience of rest. Our future lies in proving that a sculptural silhouette, such as the one found in the Elliot, can (and should) be the most comfortable seat in the room.
What will never change is our refusal to automate the soul out of the process. The sewing machine, the hand-hammer, and the expert eye of the upholsterer will remain our primary tools. No matter how large we grow, every piece that leaves our studio will have been touched, checked, and finished by a human being here in Portugal. That manual touch is what ensures that our designs will remain as soulful as they are contemporary.
Diogo
06 Who's next? Name one or two founders, makers, or studios you think is making products that beautifully marry form and function right now. Someone we should be paying attention to, and why.
Vincent Van Duysen is someone I genuinely admire, and a lot of that admiration comes from what he accomplished at Molteni&C. Taking creative control of a brand with that much history and legacy is not a simple task — you're not working with a blank canvas. What impresses me most is how he managed to introduce a more current design language without erasing what was already there. He didn't rebrand Molteni&C so much as he retuned it, bringing it into a frequency that feels relevant today while preserving the material seriousness and craftsmanship that made the brand worth caring about in the first place. That kind of balance is genuinely difficult to strike, and I have a lot of respect for it. @vincentvanduysen
José
Lightning Round
An object you'd never replace
A good mechanical watch will outlive everyone who owns it. You don't replace that.
A book, film, or album that shaped how you think about design
The Dieter Rams documentary really inspired me. There's something about hearing someone speak about design with that kind of quiet conviction. Less but better. Sounds simple until you try to actually mean it.
A daily ritual
Scrolling through Pinterest. It becomes a kind of background process that runs constantly, and then one day something you saw months ago quietly shows up in the work.
The last thing you bought that surprised you
I stumbled across this old design book in a secondhand shop. And when I opened it, something about the paper, the printing, the whole feel of it just slowed me down completely. You forget that books used to be made like that.
A piece of advice you'd give to someone making their first product
Beauty is non-negotiable for me. Everything else on a project can be adapted, reworked, and compromised to some degree. But if the beauty of a piece is lost in production, then something fundamental was lost. I'll always push to protect that, even when it's inconvenient.
Coffee order
The good old Espresso.
José