Hot Shots: A-nrd
social: @a_nrdstudio
project: Locke Copenhagen
Alessio Nardi and Lukas Persakovas, directors at A-nrd, studied and worked in industrial design, including at an Amsterdam consultancy, where they overlapped briefly. Born in Italy, Nardi founded A-nrd (a riff on the pronunciation of his first initial and last name) in 2015, after stints at Tord Boontje and Lee Broom. Persakovas, from Lithuania, began his career as a retail designer for such luxury stores as Galeries Lafayette, joining A-nrd in 2018. Their backgrounds make them particularly attentive to detail, a perspective well suited to hospitality, which has become their specialty.
Their latest commission in the sector is Locke Copenhagen, for which A-nrd conceived the public spaces. Some designers working in Scandinavia for the first time might lean into the region’s modernist heritage. But not Nardi and Persakovas, whose studio is in London, the same city where Locke, a short- and extended-stay hospitality brand, launched a decade ago, now with 28 properties across Europe. “We avoid direct references or thematic interiors,” Nardi says of A-nrd’s strategy for all projects, including the Denmark one. Instead, he and Persakovas found their angle based on three pillars of Danish design: simplicity of form, love of nature, and the idea of home. “There’s a real coziness in Scandinavian houses, linked to the weather and hygge—minimal but warm,” he adds.
A-nrd carved the cavernous 1,950 square feet into a welcoming environment comprised of four zones: reception, lounge, café, and restaurant, all with a 15-foot ceiling. Curved oak partitions on stone blocks delineate some areas. “They’re monumental, but the space still feels open and light comes in,” Persakovas notes. In the café, a long paper lantern handmade by Céline Wright helps temper the scale. Throughout, A-nrd softened the exposed-concrete interior with sand-toned café curtains, inlaid oak tables, and wood sculptures by Tilde Grynnerup. Much of the seating is custom, including three different armchair styles—a way to appeal to locals seeking a change from the modernist classics. a-nrd.com
Source: https://interiordesign.net
