Neko - Life with design

Welcome to Neko, an industrial design studio with a vision to make the world around us better through our work. We help our clients create beautiful and functional outdoor spaces with our innovative cycling solutions, playgrounds, street furniture, and custom design service. Discover the solutions we can bring to your urban projects.

A shared passion

Neko started life in 2005 with four friends: Alice, Daniel, Hiroshi and Karime. We had a couple of computers and a vision to make the world a bit better through our designs. What has grown from that moment has been truly exciting. Other like-minded people have joined the Neko team, and our work has travelled the world, been featured in press from Forbes to Architectural Digest, and picked up several international design awards along the way.

Your projects are our inspiration.

We started out working on industrial design consultancy projects such as urban furniture and signage design for architects and urban designers. After working with several high-profile clients, we noticed something interesting – people were contacting us to ask how they could buy the street furniture on our website. They were looking for something new and different, and they couldn’t find it.

We spotted an opportunity and created Neko City, our own line of design-led and user-friendly street furniture. The aim was for each piece to add something extra to the spaces it adorned.

And it didn’t stop there. People kept asking us to design the things they couldn’t find - a user-friendly two-tier bike rack; a smart cycle hub; imaginative playgrounds…the list went on.

So we designed them!

Award-winning urban products

The result was three product lines – now over 150 products, from street furniture to cycle parking and playgrounds. Many have won design awards; all are inspired by the vision of our clients.

Over 10,000 of our products have been installed, bringing innovation, eco-design and a splash of colour to great projects of all sizes.

Collaboration is key

With offices in Mexico and Spain, we’re a global team. Our company culture is the secret to our success – over the years we’ve been joined by a great team of like-minded friends and professionals - and we’re passionate about what we do! We believe in the power of collaboration and our aim is to work with partners and distributors worldwide who share our vision and ambition.

Awards

We set ourselves an ambitious goal to win at least one international design award each year, and we're pleased to say we've achieved it! These are some of them:

A’Design Award. Silver Award for ‘Ola Bench’. Milan, Italy, 2014.

US Green Building Council, USGBC. Members since 2013.

United State Green Building Council Member

1st Iberoamerican Design Biennial. Official selection, ‘Nest paperclip holder’. Madrid, Spain, 2008.

Iberoamerican Design Biennial Neko Madrid

9th National Design Biennial. 1st place in the category ‘Design for development and new technology’ for ‘Double-decker bike rack’. Mexico 2017.

Biennial Technology Bike Rack Award Winner

Ministry for Social Development. Recognition from the Federal government for ‘Ludic Object – Emblematic play equipment’. Mexico, 2008.

Award Playground Element National Public Element

Culiacan Agriculture Museum. 1st place in the national competition for the conceptual architectural project. Culiacan, Mexico, 2010.

Street Seats design challenge, Boston Design Museum. Finalist, ‘Ola Bench’. Boston, USA, 2013.

Bench Design Museum Boston Street Challenge

5th Iberoamerican Design Biennial. Official selection, ‘Acapulco street furniture line’. Madrid, Spain, 2016.

Society for Environmental Graphic Design SEGD. Jury Award for ‘Chapultepec Signage Project’. California, USA, 2009.

Society for Experiential Graphic Design Award Design Signage Urban Furniture

Selected at no. 6 in the ‘10 Studios for Smart Cities’ award by Obras architecture magazine, for ‘Intelligent cycle parking hub La Villa’. Mexico, 2018.

Smart Cities Award Ciclyng Hub Neko Obras Magazine

European Product Design Award. Bronze Award in the category ‘Design for Social Impact’ for ‘Double-decker bike rack’. Brussels, Belgium, 2017.

8th National Design Biennial. Special mention for ‘Acapulco bike rack and bollard’. Mexico, 2015.

XVII Quorum Awards. Bronze award for ‘Orbit bracelet’. Mexico, 2007.

What our clients say

“We chose Neko for their creativity, innovation and successful solutions. For the playground design … they provided a specific solution for a pilot project where it was necessary to go a step further than commonly-found concepts.”
Loreta Castro Reguera / Design Director, Taller Capital Architecture studio
“We needed to design a self-assembly pallet box, able to carry up to 1000kg as well as being disposable, recyclable and light. After several attempts to find a solution to this design problem, Neko took the challenge and approached the issue with creativity, and more importantly from the viewpoint of the customer. The box is now in production and I can’t recommend them highly enough.”
Omar Holguin / Director, Trexco International Ltd, London UK
“We were looking for a commercial ally noted for their technology. In Neko we found the dedication, execution and professionalism that we needed to carry out our project.”
Michel Jiménez Dondiego / Legal manager, Pulso Inmobiliario construction firm
“Neko is characterised by avant-garde design…We worked with Neko because they understand the rehabilitation strategies for the large-scale public spaces that we run.”
María de Lourdes Pérez / Director, Operations and Sporting Infrastructure, Indeporte Mexico City
“We needed urban furniture for several projects and we looked to Neko because they create specific comprehensive design solutions, and their on-time delivery and quality lead to happy customers.”
Heriberto Maldonado / CEO, Colectivo A Architecture Studio
“Your [double-decker bike rack] design deserves praise: space-saving, increased capacity and really comfortable because you don’t have to lift the bike. It will be really popular!”
Areli Carreón / Bicycle Mayor of Mexico City 2017