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" The Spanish-born, Milan-based Patricia Urquiola trained as an architect and has designed some of the most poetic and practical furniture of the 21st century, including the clean-lined Clip bed for Molteni &amp;amp;amp; C, minimalist Flo stool for Driade, sculptural Antibodi chaise longue for Moroso, and the cozy-quirky knit Mangas rugs for Gandia Blasco.  1. How important is memory in your work?  The Spanish chef Ferran Adri\u00E0 once said to me, &amp;quot;Memory is everything.&amp;quot; In everything I do, I begin with memory, but I rethink it in a new way. When we did the Smock chair for Moroso in 2006, I took a smock worn by my first baby and incorporated it into an office chair. We took something made by a craft technique and found a way to do it industrially. Usually there is not a lot of memory in industrial objects. 2. Explain how your new Night &amp;amp;amp; Day sofa for Molteni &amp;amp;amp; C was inspired by a Manet painting. I love the idea of &amp;quot;le d\u00E9jeuner sur l&amp;#039;herbe&amp;quot;\u2014me and you lying on a blanket, eating something and reading a book. When I think of cold sitting rooms, I always wonder how I can get my &amp;quot;d\u00E9jeuner sur l&amp;#039;herbe&amp;quot; in there. So I told Molteni that instead of another sofa, I want to create a place, like a little island, where you can have all your things around you and be comfortable and read a book and even sleep overnight. It could be for one person or if you have two sofas facing each other, it becomes an island for two.  3. Your work is about creating new ways of living? I&amp;#039;m not interested in the old meanings of what a bed, a sofa, or a bath is; I am only concerned with new and more sophisticated ways of living. A lot of the things on the market are outmoded. I just did a bath for Axor and it is quite modest in scale, but the market is full of these obsolete ideas of luxury like a big bathtub with bubble jets. It&amp;#039;s like something out of Pretty Woman. Water is gold nowadays. So if you have a supersize tub, you can&amp;#039;t use it on your own, it&amp;#039;s too wasteful. You have to get in with the whole family! 4. Your designs have been described as very feminine. Do you agree? People often say that sensuality and sensitivity are feminine qualities, but they are not gender specific. They are individual qualities. Tord Boontje is more sensual than I am. Where women are different from men is that women are more flexible, adaptable, and able to multitask. We have to be to survive, and those two qualities\u2014flexibility and adaptability\u2014I like a lot in design.  5. Why did you wait so long to open your own studio? I had a moment of great energy and I realized I could do my own story. When I was younger, I preferred to work for other people like Achille Castiglioni, Maddalena De Padova, and Vico Magistretti. Then I went to work for Piero Lissoni and really got to know a lot of the big industrial-design companies. Afterward, these companies approached me to work with them. When I was young, I was very emotional. If these companies had turned me down, I would have lost all my energy.  6. What is your house in Milan like? My house is very simple. I work eight to ten hours a day at my studio, making things for living, so when I get home I need less, not because I don&amp;#039;t like things for myself, but because I have a lot in my day. Also, the best things I own I have destroyed in my studio. I am always readapting things. A friend once fell off one of my armchairs. It was a prototype\u2014we&amp;#039;d been adjusting it. 7. How long does it take to develop a product? It is a lot like gardening. Sometimes you wait three years for a plant to grow, and sometimes it appears immediately. I have had the Night &amp;amp;amp; Day sofa in my head since I did the Clip bed six years ago. After I started talking with Molteni about the sofa design, it took just three months to complete. 8. What is your favorite thing at home that you didn&amp;#039;t design? A vase by Franco Albini. I always say, &amp;quot;Take care, we don&amp;#039;t have to break it!&amp;quot; But I am not really a fetishist about things. 9. Can you tell us about the hotels you are designing? We are doing three! We just started a hotel with Ian Schrager in Barcelona. It will be one of the first Edition Hotels for Marriott. The Mandarin Oriental, which just opened, is also in Barcelona in an old bank building on the Passeig de Gr\u00E0cia. A local architect, Carlos Ferrater, did the structure, and I did doing the interiors. And then there&amp;#039;s the W Vieques, on a little island in Puerto Rico [scheduled to open this March]. With hotels, there are always many compromises, so I hope the soul of these projects isn&amp;#039;t lost. Years ago, when I said I wanted to do a hotel, I meant a little boutique hotel in Greece. My dream was quite delicate, but the dream is very strong!  10. What was the best design advice anyone gave you? Maddalena De Padova always had the things she was working on in her house. She said she was trying to better understand what she was giving to others. She told me, &amp;quot;Patricia, you can&amp;#039;t create something that you don&amp;#039;t believe in or you haven&amp;#039;t tried yourself.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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