Waterfront House is a minimal residence located in Copenhagen, Denmark, designed by Norm Architects. Just north of the bustling city center of Copenhagen, Norm Architects has carried out a full renovation of a private family home overlooking the water. With a focus on bringing out the house’s inherent modernist qualities and putting it on display, the home is now a calm refuge of clean lines and natural materials to retreat to in a busy everyday life. Being an early modernist structure, the Waterfront House originally combined stucco details with clean lines – not daring to devote itself completely to modernism – resulting in a sort of non-style without direction. We therefore decided to take away the stucco and other redundancies in order to bring out the streamlined qualities within the structure, allowing the house to finally redeem its full minimalist potential.

The concept of the internal layout has been changed to create a core in the house. The beautiful kitchen is now the heart of the home around which everything gravitates, creating a natural flow and connection between the different functionalities on the ground floor. Serving as a sort of central axis in the space, the kitchen island is made bespoke in Grigio Belliemi stone asserting a certain solidity. The characteristic stone is moreover repeated in a brushed version by the fireplace, underlining the strong connection in the house. The entire house has been completed with bespoke interior, creating a calm refuge for the family to retreat to in a world full of stimulation. As architecture makes the framework of our daily life and well-being, the importance of the things we surround ourselves with in terms of light, materials, colors and scale, is paramount.

Photography by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen