Clarity of approach in the penthouse
Founders Sven Petzold and Tobias Petri are convinced that one of the studio’s strengths is its pronounced ability to skillfully meld the refinements that clients wish to see with Holzrausch’s high standards and reduced formal design language. It is therefore all the more unusual for them and their team to be able to tackle a project with an almost free hand. As was the case with the Munich residential concept building “Van B” masterminded by Dutch star architect Ben van Berkel and realized by Munich project developer Bauwerk.
Taking as their motto “New Perspectives: Van B Editions by AD & Bauwerk”, the renowned “Architectural Digest” magazine and Bauwerk together invited ten German interior design studios to each completely fit out a penthouse apartment complete with roof terrace in the “Van B” ready to move in, with the emphasis being on catering to the needs of people who expect something special. “What thrilled us was the opportunity to take on a project where we could design absolutely everything in line with our unmistakable Holzrausch approach,” explains Tobias Petri, the company’s managing director. The target group in their case was an affluent couple or an individual person who lives internationally and possibly possess several apartments in various cities. The question: In what sort of a residential setting would such a person feel at home in Munich? Timeless, clean lines, highly functional, but not least with a subcutaneous sense of leisureliness – that’s the look to the “Holzrausch Edition Van B”. The fit-out concept is thus typical of the mindset of the Munich-based interior design studio. “We have never been interested in producing brash single one-off items,” comments Tobias Petri. Instead, the emphasis is on holistic concepts, rooms suffused with energy, and balance. In the process, special attention is paid to surfaces and quality finishing, whereby the spectrum of materials includes far more than just the wood in the company’s name – in German, holz.
In “Holzrausch Edition Van B”, clay rendering teams up with wooden panels, patinated brass with natural stone, smoked oak floorboards with black steel, dark earth tones with untreated materials, organic vibrancy with formal stringency. And the result is a gesamtkunstwerk that stimulates the senses while likewise exuding a sense of homeliness. It is fitted out with specially designed and produced furniture and lighting objects that were developed together with selected designers and friends who are artists. A selection of these pieces from the collaborative undertakings (and they include other interior projects, too) are available as limited editions at the company’s Munich showroom.
However individual the design of the ten penthouse apartments in the “Van B” may be, in that they are the result of the respective ideas of ten different design studios, they all have one thing in common: “J*Gast”. This is a patented frame system into which an incredibly customizable range of kitchen furniture can be fitted by clicking the respective module components into place. The scope includes solid wooden drawers and elements with a real wood veneer. The sturdy worktops are primarily manufactured in local natural stone or in terrazzo. “J*Gast resembles an item of furniture,” suggests Tobias Petri, “and it therefore fits well into open-plan settings.” Making it the ideal supplement for the ten fully-furnished statement pieces designed by the interior studios that participated in the “Van B” project.
