Valentin Loellmann’s rich environments are orientated around natural light and materials.

An established interior and furniture designer, Valentin Loellmann creates rich environments that are orientated around natural light and materials. His interior designs often play on stark colour contrasts. These help to boost the effect of the clean, white surfaces which are often present. Meanwhile, his furniture is realised in warm colours, and produced in surprising metals such as copper, steel and brass. The pieces also feature unusual lines that seem to wriggle out of the materials. Unrecorded appreciates the fact that Loellmann’s interiors open spaces up, and makes them airy and elegant.

One of Loellmann’s recent projects was designing the interior of Aesop’s first Dutch outlet store. The Australian, plant based hair and skincare brand is Unrecorded’s neighbour on Amsterdam’s Utrechtsestraat. Aesop employs the sort of finely tuned, clean and sleek lines that we’ve come to expect from contemporary Antipodean design culture. To match their branding, Loellmann designed a bespoke interior for Aesop in walnut wood. Reaching for a sense of classicism, the store is inspired by the apothecaries of the early 20th century, though rendered in softer, more welcoming colours.

Speaking to dutch newspaper Het Parool, Loellmann said that it was important for Aesop to have a store interior that would reference its 17th century exterior. On his site, Loellmann says that he is keen to “adapt, change, recreate or enhance” the spaces he is tasked to redesign. His studio doesn’t just consist of himself, of course. Architectural assistance is provided by Hans Linckens, Jonas Loellmann looks after video and photographic documentation, and Lukas Cober, Victor Hahner, Karel Dicker, Max Ruel, Christian Fregnan and Maximilian Michaelis are all part of the workshop.

Text: Nicholas Burman