The Beauty of Stillness
How did the title “Stillness” emerge for your book?
I think it comes from the situation we’re in globally, where half of the world’s population is moving into cities that are becoming increasingly noisy in terms of information flow – both in the physical world and digital world. People are extremely bombarded with information and impressions every single day.
I think everybody feels the need to disconnect and withdraw, and somehow reconnect with nature – whether through how they decorate their houses, escaping on retreats, doing breathwork, or going to yoga. Everybody’s almost desperately looking for stillness or stillness of mind in many different ways.
There’s a need to reconnect with our primordial home, which is nature, and find that balance that has been our premise for existing throughout hundreds of thousands of years, until just a few hundred years ago when we’ve become disconnected from nature and now live in urban environments surrounded by artificial materials.
The Danish aesthetics also favor stillness. I write in the intro about Vilhelm Hammershøi, a renowned Danish painter from the golden age who portrayed Copenhagen apartments that are very sparsely decorated in a very melancholic blue-grayish, almost indigo setting, with all these small nuances of brown and gray and blue.
In his paintings, often just one person is seen from the back in an empty room, with side light coming in very soft and mellow. That atmosphere, which is celebrated as something truly Scandinavian, is very similar to the atmosphere of seeing a Zen monk in a temple in Japan, or a tea practitioner in a tea house. It’s the same kind of materiality, same color palette, same type of light and atmospheric feeling of stillness.
Sculpting Mood Through Architecture
There’s something beautiful about how spaces can create different moods, isn’t there?
Definitely. It really depends on exactly how it should influence your mood, or what vibe it needs to create.
There’s something beautiful about spaces that are big and light and airy and open if you want to have that uplifted feeling. There’s something extremely comforting about super dim, dark narrow spaces that are almost womb-like and protective – like in a bedroom or a bathroom where it’s very intimate and needs to have that feeling of safety.
There’s something beautiful about having long, unbroken views within spaces. There’s also something nice about views being broken up into layers of spaces. And then there’s a different beauty to all parts of the day as conditions like light change.
When I visit projects or places, I really like to stay there for a while. See how the light changes being there early morning, late afternoon, during the day, in the blue hour. So you kind of see how everything changes atmospherically.
I think architecture is about capturing the essence of all these different atmospheres of light and space.
Finding Harmony Through Different Means
Could you talk about the contrast between Danish “hygge” and Japanese “ma”?
As I understand it, in “ma” there’s some kind of harmony between space, time, and the human being. In “hygge” I think there’s also some kind of harmony, but there’s a spatial contrast.
In Japan, looking at a traditional tatami house, it’s just empty with very few objects and essentially no furniture. If you want storage, you push it out of the walls as extensions on the outside of the house. But the inside is kept quite clean according to the tatami modular system. There’s a richness in materiality that makes the space feel welcoming and pleasant – natural acoustics, ventilation, humidity, and tactile materials. So it works quite well in traditional Japanese houses, having this idea of emptiness or void.
But if you take the same concept into a modern urban building with concrete, tiles, and big glazed windows, the spatial concept doesn’t work in the same way because it suddenly becomes an artificial environment with bad acoustics and modern ventilation.
One way of solving that is putting some Danish elements into the space – big lush carpets, layering of upholstery, artworks, cozy lamps, curtains – things that do the same thing as the traditional Japanese house. These elements create great acoustics, connection to nature, tactility, and sensory richness, but they do it with objects.
So there’s this contrast – the Japanese want to keep the space clean, while we want to have that sense of layering and coziness and warmth. But that warmth already exists in the traditional Japanese house due to how it’s constructed. It’s an interesting contrast and discussion, because in many ways, they can achieve some of the same things.
I never thought about that. Both approaches aim for the same goal but start from different conditions in each culture.
A Journey Between Worlds
I was surprised that although you had been influenced by Japan for a long time, your first trip was only in 2017. Can you tell me about that first trip and your impressions?
While studying architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Architecture in Copenhagen, I studied a lot of Japanese architecture. Many of my generation were influenced by postmodernist ideas and drawn to more experimental, playful architecture that was trying to set new boundaries – Rem Koolhaas was very much in vogue. But I was drawn to classic modernist ideas, which were greatly influenced by Japanese architecture. The simplicity and minimalism somehow touched me.
While in school, I was working for a Danish designer doing kitchen utensil designs who was also extremely inspired by Japan. He would travel there often and bring back suitcases of beautiful handcrafted objects that would be all around the studio. We would often talk about his visits to gardens, temples, and houses.
It wasn’t until 2017 that I actually got the chance to travel there in person. It was something I had implemented into my early work without ever having been there, just from looking at images and drawings. It happened by chance – my business partner Frederick [Werner] and I were invited for a workshop in Ariake in the southern part of Japan.
Two small furniture companies had gotten governmental support to do an export of Japanese craft from the region. They connected with a Singaporean designer who reached out to designers he had met to create this workshop where we worked with the craftsmen in Japan, coming up with a collection of furniture to create a new furniture brand called Ariake.
A Common Language
What surprised you most about the similarities and differences between Danish and Japanese design sensibilities?
Working with the craftspeople in the factories really struck me because we didn’t have any common language – they couldn’t say much in English, and I didn’t speak one word of Japanese. Culturally, it’s just so different. The Japanese are very polite, with so much between the lines that you need to capture from the atmosphere. In Denmark, we’re completely the opposite. We are often extremely direct and sometimes very brutal in our way of being.
So in terms of business etiquette, it was very difficult and strange for me. But working with design, working with our hands – there was this instant common language about the right solutions and ways to create furniture pieces from wood. We didn’t need any other language, and that felt very much like being at home. I felt that working with Danish craftspeople could be much more complicated. It was just such an easy way of going about things – communication through working with your hands.
There was also something striking about visiting the first houses, temples, and gardens where there was this simplicity to the spaces and objects. Everything was about using natural materials, with extreme attention to detail. You could see there was a care for the home.
Bridging Cultural Divides
What are the biggest challenges you face when working with different cultures?
There are so many challenges. We’re a small studio of around 30 people, but we design projects all over the globe, so we work with many different cultures. Even just working in Sweden – the Swedish culture is much more like the Japanese, and very distinctively different from Danish culture, even though we’re neighbors with almost the same language. They have a much different business etiquette in Sweden, where everything is about consensus and being extremely polite, not saying things directly.
One of my biggest challenges working in Japan is that I like efficiency and getting things done, knowing what’s up and down. I’m very direct and outspoken, like many Danes – a mix of being Danish with German efficiency. That just doesn’t work in Japan. Over the years, I’ve found that my best strategy is to say as little as possible, just listen, be polite, and wait.
Exiting a meeting about a new project, I never know whether it was a good meeting or a bad meeting, because nobody says anything – they’re just very polite, saying “thank you” as you walk out the door. Maybe you never hear from them again, or maybe you’ll get a phone call the next day saying “let’s start the project.” That’s extremely difficult for me, but it’s also interesting to learn how to approach it in the best way.
Building Long-Term Relationships
What sometimes might appear as ‘walking in circles’ in Japanese business is actually relationship building. My Aikido teacher explained it perfectly: you’re preparing the terrain, understanding connections before taking action. They’re not avoiding the point—they’re building toward it methodically. When they finally strike, it’s from a position of strength that wouldn’t exist if they’d gone straight to the goal.
Yeah. And it makes so much sense, especially that it’s long term. You’re actually building relationships. It’s not just trading or making a quick deal. It’s building a long-term relationship that would work better. I really like that. And I just need to learn how to not be impatient.
I think probably in Denmark it’s because we’ve been sailors, tradespeople sailing around the globe trying to buy things cheap and sell them expensively, making that small margin that we have become very agile and very direct because we needed to move fast.
The Value of Good Design
What do you feel is the role and value of good design in today’s world?
I think the role and value of good design today has not changed much since man started making the first tools.
Good design is about designing for a need to solve challenges, support human life and enhance well-being. Whether that is for the few, for the many, to solve small everyday tasks, or find solutions to the global climate crisis. The value of good design is ultimately the same.
In architecture, interior design and furniture design, good solutions for human needs balance simplicity with warmth, tactility, and a strong connection to the human experience. It’s about reducing the noise while amplifying meaning. In an overstimulated, hyper-connected world, good design serves as a kind of anchor.
Our approach to design prioritizes calm, clarity, and sensory well-being. So, good design isn’t just aesthetic, it’s also therapeutic and influences our mental and physical state. It creates spaces and objects that help us breathe. In that sense, design becomes less about making impressions and more about supporting quality of life.
Good design’s value also lies in its ability to foster connections — to ourselves, to others, and to our surroundings. This is increasingly important today, when digital life often disconnects us from the physical world.
