A neutral Copenhagen home – the Ask Og Eng apartment for 3 Days of Design

This neutral Copenhagen home has calm in abundance, from the soft, buttery beige walls and light-filled rooms to the warm wooden details and minimalist styling. It’s the latest interior project from Ask og Eng, a Norwegian architecture and design studio based between Drammen and Mallorca, who for the occasion of 3 Days of Design opened the space up to the public. It was a unique opportunity to see inside a real Danish home, while providing the perfect canvas to show off their handmade bamboo kitchen and furniture. Let’s have a look inside!

All photos Cate St Hill

Ask Og Eng was founded by environmental geographer Kine Ask Stenersen and architect Kristoffer Eng in 2016. Together they shared a desire to make sustainable interiors designed for longevity using quality materials. While renovating their first apartment together and struggling to find what they wanted while maintaining a level of sustainability, they decided to have a go at building a kitchen themselves using bamboo.

Offering a greener alternative to wood, bamboo is highly durable and grows faster than trees, without the need for any fertilisers or pesticides. It also absorbs more Co2 than it releases while it’s growing, uses less water than cotton and produces more oxygen than a forest of trees. Ask Og Eng’s sustainable kitchen collection was born.

‘We had never really built anything before, besides the one wall we had put up while looking at YouTube-videos to figure out how to do it. But we took to it and it felt so good building something for ourselves, while slowly falling in love with the material. So when we later decided to move, expecting our first child, we decided to build a bamboo kitchen once again,’ they say.

Kine and Kristoffer first began by making kitchens from inside their garage in Drammen. This expanded into the Ask Og Eng House, a restored 19th century home, which now acts as a living and breathing showroom where you can see and experience their bespoke furniture first hand. You can even stay as a guest in the house for the weekend.

This Copenhagen home features Ask Og Eng’s A collection, with handmade bamboo fronts designed to fit onto IKEA cabinets, made in their workshop in Norway.

This neutral Copenhagen home centres on a large living room which opens up to a small dining room at one end and a calm, tranquil haven of a bedroom at the other end. The colour palette is simple and pared-back – I love how the woodwork has been picked out in a slightly darker tone than the walls, it’s a really subtle but effective way to draw out the period details. You’ll note that the original floor boards have been restored and white washed, and new lighting hung. With a little pop of greenery and a few carefully placed accessories, the result is light and airy, yet soft and inviting at the same time.

 

Off the hallway to the left of the living room lies two small children’s bedrooms, as well as the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen may be small but it packs in plenty of storage without overcrowding the space. A lovely detail is the cosy window seat, which extends the bamboo joinery below the window. I can imagine how someone might be sitting here looking out the window while someone else is cooking and getting dinner ready. Who wouldn’t want to make this home?