What was the brief?

Goddard Littlefair were called upon to transform the public areas including the Pool Terrace, Wellness areas, Pre-function rooms and Event Breakout spaces, Meeting rooms and art filled staircases. Goddard Littlefair’s emerging sister company, F&B design studio, Epicurean were tasked with designing Villa Copenhagen’s five food and beverage spaces: the breakfast restaurant, Public, the Rug Bakery, the all-day restaurant and bar, Kontrast, the T37 Bar & Lounge and the rooftop Pool Bar.

What were the key challenges?

Epicurean’s vision was to create destination F&B venues with a point of difference; introducing something new and fun to the marketplace whilst resonating with the locale and honoring the Scandinavian design sensibility. The studio’s ambition was to attract hotel guests, the general public and local residents into each restaurant and bar by creating unique yet informal spaces that each offer something extraordinary. 

What materials did you choose and why?

Epicurean discovered old photographs showing the space when it was a working sorting room for the Post House. The archive photos which capture this period inspired the entire design process, referencing original archways, lights with draped flex, reeded wall panelling and original glazed brickwork. Using these elements to tell a story through a contemporary lens, the space has been transformed into a multifaceted breakfast and event restaurant complete with copper archways made from the Villa’s rooftop and features an open kitchen, café and bakery to provide fresh bread and coffee for hotel guests and the general public.

Flos delivers the lighting design of Villa Copenhagen, one of the city’s most iconic buildings which has undergone a major transformation: the former Central Post Office headquarters has now been converted into a majestic hotel.

The lighting design becomes the main focus of this building in the heart of the Danish capital, forming a link in the dialogue between architecture and design, past and present, interior and exterior. In this unique project of its kind, collections from the company’s 4 different divisions - Flos Decorative, Flos Architectural, Flos Outdoor and Flos Bespoke - expertly interact with each other in complete service of the client and designer, offering ideal solutions for every setting.

The five-star hotel thus joins the extensive portfolio of projects designed by the company, a global leader in the production of top-of-the-range designer lamps and innovative lighting systems for the residential, hospitality and commercial sectors.

To light the spacious common areas, the facade, the covered foyer, the terrace, the pool, the brasserie, the bar, the Shamballa Suite and the rooms of the Villa Copenhagen, several collections, both decorative and architectural, were selected from the vast Flos catalogue, including: Noctambule by Konstantin Grcic, chosen for the ADI Index 2020, Clara and Camouflage by Piero Lissoni, SuperArchimoon by Philippe Starck and Bellhop by Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby. Numerous solutions were also chosen from the Flos Outdoor range.

The extraordinary know-how of Flos Bespoke, the division of the group focused on the development and production of unique custom lighting solutions for large scale projects, made it possible to create tailor-made appliances, which meet the challenging architectural demands of the building.

After carefully studying photographs of the original interior, the designers worked in close collaboration with the company to create extremely high-performance lamps and lighting systems which successfully blend with the interior and atmosphere of Villa Copenhagen. The hotel has an extraordinary diversity of spaces which intersect and communicate with each other in splendid succession. The Flos designs are placed within this context: unique lighting architecture, in perfect continuity with the building’s stylistic imprint.

With a surface area of 25,000 m2, the conversion of Villa Copenhagen is a truly ambitious project, for which Flos supplied almost all of the lighting.

No less than five architecture and design firms were involved in the entire renovation, with work worth a total value of over 200 million euro. A unique project of it kind, back in the spotlight in the Danish capital.

As guests pass through the Neo-Baroque façade of Villa Copenhagen, they enter a world of conscious, contemporary luxury with an ambiance all its own. Villa Copenhagen features the AXOR Montreux collection within 381 of the hotel’s guest rooms and suites, designed by London-based practice Universal Design Studio. The presence of bespoke AXOR Montreux basin and bathtub faucets in the hotel’s eight Shamballa suites which were designed by the luxury brand of the same name deserves special mention. In the bathrooms, the Shamballa team worked closely with AXOR Signature, the customization service of AXOR, to create bejeweled handles—cast as double thunderbolts, the symbol of Shamballa—for the faucets. The handles are inlaid with ruby and sapphire to represent hot and cold water, they express perfectly the AXOR commitment to individualization and personal luxury.

Architects: Universal Design Studios

Collection: AXOR Montreux

Surface: Brushed Black Chrome

AXOR Signature Service: New Product Development