DIGS is the premiere luxury real estate lifestyle magazine serving the most affluent neighborhoods in the South Bay and Westside of Los Angeles, California.
Issue link: https://www.southbaydiggs.com/i/1222899
A R C H I T E C T U R E + D E S I G N P R O F I L E | K I N F O L K G A L L E R Y H ow right that Kinfolk Gallery, a beautifully articulated collaborative and multifunctional space for Kinfolk magazine staff, should have a home in the heart of Copenhagen. The international city's contemporary design credits are many, admirable and growing by the day—not least Norm Architects, the practice behind the design and a strict adherent to Modernist codes from residential architecture to commercial interiors. Like the firm's other solutions, the gallery is holistic in its sympathies—for simplicity, for attention to detail, for honest materials and human scale. In our current design moment, this creed is a culture— the "Kinfolk" brand evokes a kind of design utopia, the rare human-centered balance. Given that balance is the ballast of Norm Architects' deliberative work, its collaboration with Nathan Williams and Jessica Gray of Kinfolk (along with an array of "co-creators" including Apparatus and Danish design company Paustian) make Kinfolk Gallery the product of a strikingly simpatico design alliance, a shared response between partners of like mind that presents itself as a physical manifestation of the Kinfolk doctrine. The project's minimalist, detail-focused treatment strikes a harmonious tone that is both graceful and easy—a mood tailor-made for creative exchange. In this sense Kinfolk Gallery functions as equal parts salon and showcase, and, in Kinfolk brand fashion, puts forth an unforced and palpable aesthetic equilibrium. "Much like human well-being, the essence of our work is found in balance—between richness and restraint, between order and complexity," Norm Architects offers. "Our vision is to look beyond sight. We want to create spaces that feels good in every way." The interior architecture of the space unfolds in three zones and was "designed to be bright, light and harmonized in the front area while slowly getting darker and more intimate as you move through a series of narrow door openings that stretch from floor to ceiling, expanding the sense of height in the space," notes Norm Architects. From the front end, one moves from the light-filled gallery and gathering space, where one watches scenes from central Copenhagen through large glass windows, to a workspace, to a private back room that, though separate, is architecturally and aesthetically engaged with the overall design. "Every single tone, nuance and material in the space has been carefully selected to create a harmonious, precise and natural feel with haptic qualities that we felt was well suited for the Kinfolk credo of slow living," adds the firm. KINFOLK GALLERY IS A SPACE WITHOUT CONCEIT. RIGOROUSLY MINIMAL, EACH AREA WITHIN THE GALLERY COMPLETE A SIMPLE AND ELEGANT HOLISTIC WHOLE THAT SUPPORTS CREATIVITY AND CONTEMPLATION IN EQUAL MEASURE.