Through my job as an architecture journalist and interiors blogger I get to see a lot of show flats, but to be honest after a while they all start to look the same – carpeted, fake displays of luxury. So it was refreshing last week to visit the London home of Danish design brand MENU – a beautifully minimal loft apartment in a raw, industrial setting in Shoreditch – that’s unlike anything else you usually see in the capital. An alternative show flat that puts beautifully crafted objects and solutions for everyday use at its heart.
‘We strive to make the world better, less complicated, and more beautiful to wake up to each day,’ is MENU’s ethos. And luckily for Menu’s representative here in London, Kaspar, he gets to wake up to this everyday. An enviable position don’t you think?
Light and airy, this minimal loft apartment is all painted white floors and tall ceilings. The open-plan space is rather cleverly divided by soft linen curtains and sliding doors, creating a series of intimate, zoned spaces for clusters of contemporary furniture from MENU’s understated collection. Let’s take a tour…
You enter the apartment through a long corridor, reaching a compact, functional kitchen on your left and a living/dining space spreading out in front of you, with a raised platform for an armchair and coffee table playing with level changes on one side. The rest of the show flat unfolds from this space, a smaller, cosier living room opening onto a large, white bedroom at the end. In effect, the whole apartment is u-shaped, with a box concealing the bathroom and storage hidden in the middle.
My favourite space was the secondary, smaller living space, which perfectly encapsulated MENU’s philosophy of soft minimalism and quiet tactility. What could have easily just functioned as a thoroughfare has been brought to life with the careful positioning of the rectilinear Godot sofa designed by Iskos-Berlin alongside a soft beige rug and a few vibrant plants. New to the collection for 2018, the Zet shelving system, conceived by Kaschkasch, has wooden u-shaped shelves and a simple black metal frame that mirrors the slender legs of the sofa design. The room is completed with the sculptural, black Afteroom stool, lightweight No No tables by Note Design Studio and Norm Architects with their reflective glass tabletops, and accessories including the Pepe Marble Mirror, and the Stone Lamp with its raw sand coloured ceramic base.
The bedroom space is a calm, all-white sanctuary – a room for the purists out there. A simple, low, platform bed is complimented by marble bedside tables from MENU’s Plinth Series. Designed by Norm Architects, these cubed podiums come in three different sizes, perfect for displaying sculptures, art books, or for use as a coffee table or side table. The bedside lamp is the playful Conic Table Lamp designed by Thomas Bentzen. The expressive art prints are by Atelier CPH, while the minimal skincare is from Danish company Nuori.
On one side of the room, there is the Norm Floor Mirror in white, with a leather handle, simply leaning against the wall. Other designs in the space include the Afteroom chair, the lightweight WM String Lounge Chair by Studio WM, and the elegant Tailor Sofa designed by Portuguese designer Rui Alves. Inspired by memories of his grandfather’s favourite tailor shop, the Tailor Sofa has a light, slender, wooden frame, almost mid-century in style, with an upholstered foam shell that cocoons the body. Of course, no stylish Scandinavian space is complete without some seriously good sound from Bang & Olufsen.
And now back to the main living/dining space. The soft beige walls add a hint of warmth, while the brass POV Circle provides a beautiful display for a olive branch on the wall. Designed by Note Design Studio, it can be used as a candleholder to cast soft, flickering light. On the windowsill sits a smoke-coloured vase from the Troll Series designed by Anderssen & Voll.
During the press view of the apartment, London-based designer Tim Rundle was there to talk about his TR Bulb Series. Designed to be easily moved from one place to another, say if you were moving homes and wanted to take your light fitting with you, the spherical form of the TR Bulb can be simply unscrewed like any normal bulb and attached onto a pendant, a table lamp, or a fitting on the ceiling or a wall. There’s not even any need for an electrician – the wall bracket for instance can be wired in or hung from a nail, with the cable being plugged into a wall socket. The round, white shape conceals a dimmable LED E27 bulb within it, while the opal glass creates an even, ambient glow.
So what do you think – the dream minimal loft apartment right? Even though you’re right in the hustle and bustle of Shoreditch, the show flat felt like a calm, quiet retreat from the city. If I lived there, I’d never want to leave!
All images Cate St Hill
