Anouska Hempel Design – AHD – is the London-based international studio created by the celebrated designer Anouska Hempel, with an unrivalled international reputation for architecture, interiors, landscapes, products and graphics.
Anouska Hempel Design has been responsible for the entire creation of three significant and influential hotels, which have been acclaimed as masterpieces – Blakes in London and in Amsterdam and The Hempel in London, alongside residential work in over ten countries. The studio is currently engaged in new projects in Paris, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Bruges and on the north coast of Brazil where her fourth hotel, at Warapuru in Itacare, Bahia, Brazil, is being designed and constructed. This latter creation by Anouska Hempel is a new heaven: the most exciting, minimalist and monolithic work of architecture and interior design of the new century – a spa, hotel and state-of-the-art development which emerges majestically from the canopy of the Rainforest, with views across the ocean. The marvellous array of spa facilities in the resort is designed to contribute to the drama of its natural setting. Forty individual villas and pavilions – all designed with Hempel’s precision and detail – complete this visionary development, scheduled for completion in 2007.
AHD’s retail and commercial clients include Van Cleef & Arpels for whom they have developed new international retail concepts and store designs, Louis Vuitton for whom they have completed a flagship store in Paris and range of pen designs, and Bloomberg, for whom AHD is working in London and New York on a series of function spaces and furniture designs.
AHD Garden Designs include private courtyards, garden squares, marquee designs, extensive formal gardens and expanses of English countryside as well as parks, gardens and coastlines. They include projects in Holland, an entire house and garden concept in Austria and a complete hotel and spa set on the coastline of Brazil. In the pipeline, for forthcoming inauguration, is the design and execution of a garden in Oxford in memoriam for HRH The Princess Margaret.
The AHD Yacht and Boat Design projects range from the comprehensive restoration and interior design of a 28-metre Turkish Gulet to a completely contemporary and finely – detailed interior, with furniture design, for a 27-metre San Lorenzo motor yacht in Italy, completed at the end of 2005.
AHD today is part of an award-winning team preparing for a flagship commission for the French Government to design and realise a new-build hotel on the île Seguin on the river Seine. Close to the Pont de Sèvres, is the former site of the famous Renault Car factory, where an immense regeneration project is underway involving leading European architects and designers. The focal point will be the entire island of île Seguin where the new hotel interiors will be designed by AHD for completion around 2008.
Jakarta will see the launch of the first I-Shy Restaurant, a concept by AHD which will be a centrally-located 80-seater restaurant and roof terrace on the fifth floor of an immense new glass structure, set in an attractive, affluent area of Jakarta, on the outskirts of the city. A project in which the warmth of Blakes Amsterdam, is intermixed with the clean modernist design of the renowned Hempel Hotel, I-Shy will be developed using stone flooring throughout with black lacquer, polished plaster and eau de nil fabrics; colour will be drawn into the interior with banners behind screens, and long pendant lamp-fixtures will give the lighting a dramatic aesthetic, as well as a functional direction. The extended corridor, leading to the main restaurant and private dining rooms, is one of the hallmarks of her design.
The I-Shy roof-terrace is an area unique to this venue, with creative water design and a new monolithic model is introduced to create spaces and private enclaves, planted with box. This space is designed for supreme flexibility, creating a comprehensive study of space, in order to be able to use niches for private dining or expanding to the full length of the terrace with white sails drawn over the top, to create a marquee with a long open fire as a focal point.
An in-depth study is underway at AHD’s design head quarters in London for a secluded site in a cove near the small fishing village near Bodrum, on the south-western coastline of Turkey. Sensual aromas from the wild vegetation surround this natural enclave, and above the evergreen tangerine groves a stepped castellated construction designed by AHD will rise from the ground to take in the rich blue waters of the Aegean Sea, using the natural stone and woods particular to the region.
Anouska Hempel Design’s team of architects and master craftsmen are dedicated to producing finely conceived and crafted architecture and design in any environment, and in creating a complete lifestyle. Each project is informed and enriched by a depth of international experience and passion for design of original and lasting quality.
Blakes London, Anouska Hempel’s original inspired hotel, the home from home to the worlds’ discerning customers, has just been bought by the hotelier Anouska Hempel –lock, stock and barrel.