Conversations: Susanna Cots Design, Begur, Spain

Conversations: Susanna Cots Design, Begur, Spain

Based in Begur, along the Costa Brava in Spain’s Catalonia region, designer Susanna Cots points to her surroundings—and nature—as her primary source of inspiration. A beautiful medieval village with just 300 residents, Begur provides a setting that “makes you slow down to be more aware of where you live, how you work,” she says.

“It’s a long-term process of gaining consciousness.”

Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design
Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design

When Cots approaches a project she always looks for what’s unique in the space. Each one has “its own language,” she explains, “and we need to listen to it, observe it, pamper it, and make the best out of it.”

Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design
Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design
Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design

Often, the most important elements in an interior—”anything that binds you to your most primary essence as a person”—are invisible, Cots says, and this includes light. She works to channel and direct light to make the interior flow.

“What we have to look for is this visual comfort and well-being in spaces.”

Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design - Musa
Vibia The Edit - Conversations: Susanna Cots Design - Musa

The goal is to ensure the lighting design emphasizes key features in a subtle way without calling attention to itself, thereby bringing out the emotion in a space.

Lighting, according to Cots, “is the great emotional modulator. It should reinforce what we want from a space but with the minimum expression and minimum language.”