The chance of seeing how a product or a material is made and the processing it undergoes is something people have always been strongly fascinated by: it opens up a whole new world concealed to the eye.
How are Santamargherita’s materials created? Here starts our journey behind the scenes, to find out more about the work before each one of its products is designed. We’ll take you inside Santamargherita’s R&D lab, where constant experimentation and research are pursued in the name of quality.
Natural stones and resins: let us introduce you to SM Marble and SM Quartz
The natural feeling conveyed by the strength and compact design for which SM Quartz and SM Marble stand out is so strong that they might seem like materials that have always existed, exactly as they appear when they meet the eye. The secret to Santamargherita agglomerates lies in the careful selection of raw materials and the combination with resins of the highest quality, certified and tested for use in closed spaces.
While the SM Quartz line is the result of the selection of quartz sand, SM Marble arises from the combination of the finest marble chips. In both cases, the materials undergo preliminary research, complex processing, gauging, polishing and testing to meet international standards for use in residential settings and for food contact.
How we create new materials
Santamargherita focuses its production on its customers’ requests. Everything revolves around their ideas and their projects. These ideas take shape, turning into something tangible, in the R&D department. In the R&D lab there are four people with the key role of assuring the quality and reliability of Santamargherita products. They are mainly tasked with developing new materials and conducting technical checks on the selected raw materials as well as on the finished product: experimentation is key to quality. Before actual production, there is a detailed analysis of the raw materials: availability, sourcing, aesthetic appeal, & final effect. The sample production stage lasts about 20 days, after which it is submitted to the customer to ensure the material matches the requested features. If the customer asks for changes, the work continues until the desired result is obtained.
You can learn… and create something from mistakes!
Sometimes, entirely out of the blue, even an error in the lab can lead to the creation of a new material. That was the case with some materials that later became a hit, such as SM Marble-Fiorito and SM Quartz-Vittoria White. The former, whose project involved a white base with white veins, was accidentally made with a darker base. For the latter the vein was instead meant to be different, but once it was made the effect was so aesthetically pleasing that we decided to keep it.
Did you enjoy the journey behind the scenes? You’ll never look at Santamargherita’s materials with the same eyes again!
The Editor