A 5-year-old kitchen has found a new home on Copenhagen’s Paper Island, in the residence of Josephine Yaa Akuamoa. The kitchen was created by Danish kitchen design company Garde Hvalsøe for Akuamoa’s studio, File Under Pop, before being moved into her home.
The kitchen is built in ash on a zinc frame, and is Garde Hvalsøe’s Solid model. It features long, wide planks and finger-jointed drawer fronts, with each drawer having chamfered sides to allow them to sit close together.
Søren Lundh Aagaard, partner and CEO of Garde Hvalsøe, says that bringing a previously used kitchen into a new space was both a challenge and a statement. Akuamoa notes that the zinc framing, lava sink, and pale ash complement each other beautifully and age with grace.
Before the kitchen was installed, the team stripped the house back, demolishing the existing kitchen and other areas. The kitchen and dining area now take up the ground floor, with bedrooms on the middle level and an adaptable room at the top. The house features a mix of wood, raw stone, and ceramics, with ash running throughout.
The new building’s contemporary architecture draws on the island’s historic harbor warehouses, with wooden maritime gates and a diagonal element in the roof referencing Copenhagen’s harbor architecture. Akuamoa’s interior takes its cues from the water and open sky on every side of the island, with limestone echoing the sandstone harbor walls and the yellow brick of the neighboring buildings.
