Design Lab Creative Community

Wesley Sacardi, born in August 1981, is a lifelong learner, passionate about creativity and knowledge sharing. In 2016 he left the Media to create pieces in solid wood, inspired by architecture, Nordic design and wabi-sabi. In 2021 it launched the "Descartes Beyond the Raw Material Series", exploring the reuse of local or recovered wood in ecodesign, uniting artisanal techniques and free forms that preserve the identity of the material and seek balance and harmony.

Kasia Bragiel, a Polish-born graphic and product designer, trained between her homeland and Milan. She lives and works in Ericeira, valuing craftsmanship, intuition, and simplicity. Her project, Lost & Found, explores the use of local clay and traditional techniques in dialogue with innovation and improvisation. It focuses on a sustainable, creative, and conscious practice, fostering a deep connection with the land, available materials, and manual processes.

Sandra is a photographer and creative director, with a focus on cyanotype, uniting art, aesthetics and experimentation. She integrates artistic direction and styling to create striking images, combining artisanal techniques and natural materials in a multidisciplinary approach. The Deep Blue project explores cyanotype in dialogue with areas such as recycled paper, plant fibers, natural pigments and ceramics. At the Design Lab, Sandra intends to deepen this research, collaborate and expand the training aspect of her work.

Teresa Samissone, fashion designer and costume designer, is the founder of the Portuguese brand Samissone, which combines exclusivity, tradition and innovation. Inspired by her Mozambican roots, she creates unique tailor-made pieces, using high-quality African fabrics that rescue cultural heritage. The Circular Weaving project proposes a sustainable and affordable solution, which reinvents textile traditions to promote responsible practices and positive environmental impact.

Tiago Caldeira, founder of Oficina33, graduated from the Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva Foundation in Lisbon, specializing in built-in joinery. After internships in various workshops, he settled in Loulé. At the Design Lab, he intends to develop the technique of wooden inlays, creating pieces of furniture with minimalist lines that combine tradition and innovation. It values collaboration with artisans and designers to highlight the beauty and versatility of wood.

Margot Ambrosio, French-Italian with Portuguese roots, has been a designer and couture seamstress for over 10 years. Founder of AVÓ Paris, she aims to unite traditional craftsmanship, such as palm weaving, with contemporary design based on sustainable principles. In his project, he intends to create unique bags, clothes and accessories, valuing ancestral techniques and natural materials. In this residency, she seeks to develop a capsule collection that celebrates memory, art and ecological fashion, collaborating with local artisans.

Marion Gouges, an architect by training, is currently dedicated to documentary portrait photography. Established in the Algarve and integrated in the Loulé Design Lab, it focuses on capturing the essence of artisans and creators. The Photographic Portraits – Creators of the Sotavento project aims to promote, through image, small businesses and local knowledge, reinforcing the identity of creative and sustainable entrepreneurship in the region, with special attention to light, space and authenticity.

Isabel Lourenço, born in 1987, lives in Loulé. She started in photography at a young age and graduated from ETIC in 2011, after a degree in Tourism. Her work focuses on valuing local culture through image. In the project Faces and Stories of Fishing – Lives by the Sea, she portrays the fishing community exploring identities, practices and transformations of fishing, with the aim of preserving and sharing stories, knowledge and utensils through documentary photography.

Inês São Pedro has a degree in Product Design – ceramics and glass – from ESAD. CR (2013), with complementary training in Fashion and Light Design. Her project explores the technique of ceramic contracting, creating utilitarian and decorative pieces such as salad bowls and lamps, in conjunction with the SAN PI collections. It values the use of Portuguese raw materials, of local origin, and artisanal know-how, expanding the expressive potential of palm and opening new possibilities for the application of this technique.

Gustavo Arguello, a product designer and architecture student, and Carla Martins, an industrial designer specializing in graphic design and eco-design, lead Martins Arguello Design Studio. They develop solutions focused on the circular economy. The Re-feito project proposes the redesign of discarded objects, transforming waste into contemporary, personalized decorative pieces loaded with history, promoting the creative reuse of materials.

Bernardo Gomes graduated in Equipment Design in 2019 from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon and completed his master's degree in Product Design at ESAD Matosinhos in 2022. He was runner-up in the Guilherme Awards in 2019. In 2025, he began incubation at the Design Lab with the OLGA project, a course that fuses traditional knowledge and contemporary design, valuing the identity and artisanal culture of the Algarve.

Ana Silva, Brazilian, lives in Lagos, Portugal, where she dedicated herself to ceramics after a career in law. She trained at AR.CO and Loulé Criativo, and founded the atelier itsana – handmade ceramics. Her Interactive Tiles project proposes modular, dynamic and customizable ceramic compositions, which reinvent the tradition of Portuguese tiles. It invites experimentation and reinforces the connection between art, identity and territory.

Gonçalo Gama, Master in Product Design and Degree in Industrial Design from ESAD. CR, works as a designer/craftsman, focused on innovation through design and manufacturing. It investigates the use of palm and local plant fibers in dialogue with ceramics, exploring ancestral techniques in the creation of utilitarian objects. Her work crosses form, function and sustainability, with pieces with organic, curved or uncertain contours, which reveal a strong environmental and social dimension.

Re-feito was born from the need to redirect discarded raw materials for recycling, following the circular economy perspective, through a contemporary restyling of decorative objects, personalized and with a lot of history to tell.

Cláudia Moreira is an architect graduated from the Technical University of Lisbon and has a master's degree in Urban Culture from UPC/CCCB. She has collaborated in offices in Portugal, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, participated in international competitions and exhibitions. She founded the MOTE Design Studio and has a background in felting, millinery and weaving. The Tanta.Design project involves design and production of yarns and textile objects, using manual dyeing and art yarn spinning, valuing the wool of the Churra Algarvia sheep.

Dobra seeks to bring out the potential of palm frond weaving in its widest context, to bring innovation to the craft via extensive research and experimentation. From the environmental and social dimensions, to the evolution of its manufacture, resulting in functional items for everyday use.

Paula Ramos e Ramos began her training in jewellery in 2018, at the Lisbon Jewellery Centre, and deepened techniques at Cindor, in Porto, with an internship at Escuela Tous, in Barcelona. Since 2023, she has been in residence at the Design Lab, in Loulé, where she explores local techniques such as boilermaking. Born in Loulé, with Cape Verdean roots, she created the project A Joalheira Crioula, where jewellery becomes a bridge between identity, territory and contemporary artistic expression.

Margarida Valente has a degree in Interior Architecture, Restoration and Furniture, in Anthropology and a postgraduate degree in Cultural Management. She worked in an art gallery until 2021 and, since 2003, she has developed projects in the design of equipment and fashion accessories. Her project explores the reuse of various materials, changing original functions to create unique pieces, such as lamps with wooden edges, carpet waste and burel necklaces.

The Descartes Series - beyond the raw material - consists of the study of the reuse of wood to develop furniture pieces. The work consists of the development of pieces, in the area of ecodesign, based on handcrafting techniques, and explores free production forms, where it seeks to maintain the identity of the wood used as well as other ecological, recycled or locally sourced elements, all with full creative freedom.

Bernadette Martins, born in France and living in Loulé, is a designer graduated from IADE and specialized in tiles and ceramics. She founded her studio in 2007 and since 2013 she has been teaching creative ceramics. She is currently part of Loulé Criativo as a resident in the clay workshop and with the Frágil Jewellery brand incubated at the Design Lab. The brand creates contemporary jewelry that explores natural forms and materials such as silver, copper, brass, porcelain and glass, with porcelain being the central element. Jewellery has become a space of constant technical and artistic discovery.

Juliett Sarmiento, a visual artist and graphic designer from Barranquilla, Colombia, has lived in Portugal since 2019. Master in Contemporary Artistic Creation (UA, 2021), she started bookbinding at the age of 15 with her father. At 19, she deepened her interest while studying design. Since 2013, she has been exploring editorial projects in an artistic approach, creating books, fanzines and manual embroidery in limited editions, inspired by places and people.