Ing. Riccardo Sponchiado
Design · Reverse engineering · FEM · Prototyping · Production
I’m a materials engineer. I studied at the University of Padua, first chemical and materials engineering, then a master’s in materials engineering, with a thesis on cellular bioceramics. Since then I’ve almost always worked on the boundary between the material and the finished part: understanding how something behaves before building it, and what changes when you actually build it.
I started in the lab at BASF in Treviso, formulating polymer admixtures for self-levelling concrete: a year spent measuring what changes when you shift a formulation by a few percentage points. After my master’s I went back to university as a research fellow, working on 3D printing with functionally graded materials (parts whose composition changes from one point to another) with case studies in sport and biomedicine. That work led to three publications as first author.
In 2022 I moved into industry. Three years at a design studio for the cycling industry, designing carbon fibre frames for leading Italian, European and American brands, ridden all the way up to World Tour teams and Olympic athletes. Then just over a year at a furniture company in the province of Treviso, engineering products for international brands: FEM analysis, field testing and 3D-printed prototypes. In both roles I worked in constant contact with the large Chinese manufacturers that make those products.
Alongside my employed work I co-founded Re-fè, a project that recovers coffee capsules and coffee grounds. It won first prize at Creativity Startup in Treviso in 2022, was selected for the ADI Design Index 2024 and was nominated for the ADI Compasso d’Oro 2025. In 2024 we took it to MIT DesignX Venice, MIT’s programme on innovation and entrepreneurship. It was the first project where I followed the whole chain: the material, the process, the finished product.
Today I work independently. I follow projects from start to finish and, when needed, I rely on a network of craftsmen and suppliers in Italy and Asia: my clients have a single point of contact, even when the work involves different trades. I’m based in Treviso: in the Veneto region we meet in person, elsewhere we work remotely.
