Soft Minimalism

A carved stone face sculpture with a finger to its lips, resting on a book titled The Art of Kinfolk, on a wood desk in front of a dark built-in library.

I

We spend most of our time indoors. Our experience of everyday life is largely dependent on the man-made structures, materials and objects that form our modern habitat. The story of our lives unfolds between the walls of home, our place of sanctuary, at our work desks, restaurant tables, and within the greater infrastructure of the city. Just like the weather, the atmosphere of the built environment has a profound effect on how we rest, think, feel, work, eat and socialize. Spaces and objects must certainly be functional, but if they are to truly serve us, they must also attend to our bodies and emotions. At this moment in the history of artwork and design, we believe it is necessary to go beyond strict Rationalist and Modernist doctrines to resensualize the built environment with a hapticity that embraces the whole human being, that addresses our perception of space and all our sensory faculties. This requires slowing down the process to consider design from the perspective of human experience and sources of meaning. To us, a good artwork transcends utility and aesthetics to become a sensual and social exercise, to create a framework for essential human needs of safety, identity, belonging and purpose.

II

Our practice starts from this point. Guided by the body and mind rather than by trends or technology, we aim to create artworks that not only look good but that also feel good. It is about accommodating people through empathic artwork, rather than treating them as mere spectators of an aesthetic creation. We consider our work as a facilitation of well-being, as a distillation of aesthetics that resonate with the given person and place, and as a system that supports universal human needs. Each project, whether a lamp, a sculpture or a work of art, is imbued with this intrinsic quality: a simplicity that carries bigger ideas. We have dedicated the last 15 years to the pursuit of human-centric artwork and design, and project by project, have honed a philosophy and international design approach that we call Soft Minimalism. With humility, we have built our ideas on thousands of years of aesthetic evolutions and on the incredible insights of master architects and designers working before us and beside us. These lessons merge with those we have learned along the way and with the influences of our Scandinavian context. Our hope is to offer a chapter in the story of good artwork which will continue to be written far into the future.

A glass pendant lamp glowing warmly beside a bed, with a white heart shaped hand sculpture resting on a book on the nightstand below.

A stone sculpture of praying hands and a bowed face inside a shadowed archway niche, above a chest of drawers.

A large moody abstract painting leaning above a wood console, with a white heart shaped hand sculpture on a round black coffee table.

III

In an effort to think holistically about our built environment, Soft Minimalism cross-pollinates concepts from the fields of design, philosophy, psychology, biology and anthropology. We believe each mode of thinking plays an important role in good artwork. We have found solutions to the problem of aesthetic overstimulation in texts on evolutionary psychology. Neuroscience has guided our curation of color palettes and of orderly compositions. Investigations into biology and physiology have strengthened our embodied understanding of solid and void. Philosophy has inspired a thoughtful approach to narrative design and sharpened our understanding of the meanings embedded in certain forms.

A wood cabinet with glass doors, holding a framed nude portrait, a small bronze sculpture, and terracotta pottery jars.

A tall glass fronted wood cabinet filled with pottery, a slender bronze sculpture, and a framed portrait.

A dark wood desk with an open book, facing a built in library wall with a bronze sculpture displayed beside a large framed painting.

IV

Patterns emerge from these combined studies to reinforce our conviction that artwork must be functional, personal and multisensory. Through our reading, thinking and work, we have sharpened our ability to find the balance between richness and restraint, order and complexity that leads to meaningful work. Our Danish heritage provides us with an uncompromising standard of craftsmanship and a sense of history as well as optimism for the future of our industry. Underscoring all of this is perhaps our greatest influence of all, nature.

A gold sculpture of two hands forming a heart shape on a marble tray, beside pink peonies emerging from a wood crate.

An open shelf styled with a gold heart shaped hand sculpture, a stone jug with eucalyptus, and smoky glass goblets.

A pouring vessel sculpture on a round wood table, in front of a leaning gallery of framed paintings above a carved wood credenza.

A marble bust and a pouring vessel sculpture on a bathroom vanity, beneath an oval mirror and a glass sconce.

A white built-in cabinet with a hidden coffee bar, beside open wood shelves and a dining table set with blue hydrangea.

A stone sculpture of a hand shielding a face, standing on a stack of books including Sense of Place, beside open shelves of art books and a potted plant.

A black lacquered dresser with an ornate ceramic table lamp, and a black heart shaped hand sculpture resting in a woven tray on a bench at the foot of the bed.

V

We find ourselves returning again and again to the natural world, the primordial home of the human race, for guidance in the pursuit of enduring beauty, simplicity and connectivity. From this realm, we have found particular value in universal aesthetic truths (derived from human nature) that when combined with culture, context and expertise, can give rise to profound outcomes.

A dark carved wood dresser with a black heart shaped hand sculpture, beside a bed with a rust colored headboard and a framed textile artwork.

A dark bedroom with a black pouring vessel lamp sculpture on the nightstand, looking out over a lake through tall curtained windows.

VI

Through the selection of visuals and texts offered on this page, we invite you into our thought process and hope you may find valuable artworks to bring into your own life, home or work. All of the images gathered here depict The Soft Minimal projects spanning lighting, sculpture, art and objects for the home. We have chosen a thematic categorization of spaces, details and materials, rather than a disciplinary one, to provide a philosophical perspective of our design language. The complementary notes within each section elaborate on the beliefs and goals that underpin Soft Minimalism and will hopefully prove useful to you long after they have been read. For the ultra-curious, further reading may be found at the end of this piece. Ultimately, we hope Soft Minimal will give you moments of visual, tactile and cerebral pleasure to return to over time, a manifesto and a reference in one. The insights presented here are expressed with acknowledgement and gratitude for the many minds, some famous and some underrated, that have guided our practice, as well as the many out there who are thinking along the same lines. There is a lot of work to be done to resensualize the built world and, thankfully, we are not working in a vacuum. We hope to inspire and be inspired for years to come.