Home As A Sanctuary by LANSERRING
Since the active routines of work, travel and school have been tightly restricted in the last year, families have developed a profound intimacy with their homes. Design features and flaws alike have become daily companions. Meanwhile, family relationships are brought into focus. Professional and parental selves, once distinct, have united for the professional working from home.
With pressure on the kitchen to support the gamut of family and working life, LANSERRING has observed a distinct emotional shift from client briefs. Families crave soothing, pared-back spaces that enshrine the precious moments of family connection by declining to take centre stage. The reigning concept is sanctuary.
Ritual has become an important theme within this concept: our latest collection ‘Celandine Manor’ centred mindfulness with the installation of a breadmaking island. We focused on breadmaking in response to conversations with our community of clients, friends and colleagues. Many of us have found a sense of peace through nurturing a sourdough starter and providing daily bread for our families - despite turbulence beyond the walls of the home. To deepen this sense of sanctuary within the main kitchen at Celandine Manor, we created a secondary preparation kitchen, accessed through a side door. Unsightly appliances, tupperwares and washing up can be kept out of sight while the breadmaking island and cooking zone feel calm and clear.
We have observed less interest in the theatre of food preparation and much more on the emotional side of cooking. It has become more of an expression of love between family members. Privacy and intimacy characterised our recently completed project at ‘Knightsbridge Place’, designed for a young couple to enjoy together. The space was modestly proportioned and derived its sense of balance and order from intersecting lines of symmetry. The finishes and material palette were paired back and we used finger pulls instead of hardware on the cupboards to preserve clean lines. The kitchen itself was on a lower ground floor, which we responded to with a split tone palette: our cabinetry used an oak veneer with a soft cocoa sheen, contrasted against the cool white marble worktops and splashbacks. As such, there was a sense of grounding and safety to the space.
We preserved connection to nature in our ‘Ladbroke Grove Townhouse’ project with careful consideration of sightlines. From the main cooking station, the chef could look out across the social zones and straight through to the garden. When the chef turned around to use the sink they would find the effect repeated: behind the tap, we sunk a herb planter into the window sill. The plants could thrive in the natural light while blurring the boundary between inside and out. In the installation as a whole, the connection to nature was drawn subtly through the layering of tactile natural materials: oiled oak and Tundra Grey marble in low-contrast shades that allowed texture and natural pattering the space to breathe.
The pursuit of sanctuary in the home is not new, but it is pressing at this time. We at LANSERRING embrace it: we believe it is here to stay. We are creating designs that reveal their details over time. They are not static, they must be lived in to unlock the layers of emotional design thinking. They seek to support the wellbeing of you and your family.
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