Space craft: Norm designs offices on Copenhagen’s Paper Island

The Village, located in a former warehouse on Paper Island, was designed by Norm Architects for &tradition, and inspired by Mediterranean settlements. Norm designed The Village with monochromatic colours and intimate alleyways, while a central square provides a meeting place to talk over a coffee.

Each of the 12 houses that make up The Village has a different use, from display spaces and workshops to meeting rooms and kitchen facilities.

‘Some of them are cut out so much that they almost resemble screens of some sort,’ Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen, partner and architect at Norm, tells LS:N Global. ‘Others have very clear references to house structures, with internal staircases and rooftop terraces, while others have references to a church tower or a village bar. Each individual structure has its own function in The Village as a kitchen, meeting room, showroom or storage space – but as a whole the 12 houses make up a complete minimalist installation that offers many different spatial events in interplay with the old warehouse structure.’

Another example of this village aesthetic is at the design studio Bang By Min in Seoul, a shop-in-shop concept for its Miega hair salon, that drew inspiration from the layout and design of rural villages.

Read our Markets Insight report on The Future Workplace for more on how the work space is evolving to maximise energy levels and cultivate the mind.