The Quintessential Copenhagen Kitchen

In the renovation of his Copenhagen town house, architect Jeppe Dueholm showed great flair. He has kept the spirit of the old building alive whilst breathing new life into it – not least thanks to the special kitchen where Scandinavian minimalism combined with sustainability enable it to blend in perfectly with its surroundings.

When architects build for themselves, they tend to think long and hard. Jeppe Dueholm is no exception. Every detail was carefully thought out before he embarked on the renovation of his Copenhagen town house. After all, it was to become a special home for him and his family. The building in itself is noteworthy for a start: it is one of the houses in the Kartoffelrækkerne (“potato rows”), which were built in the late 19th century for the workers of Copenhagen. Today these quaint, two-floor terraced houses are among the most popular residential properties in the city. It’s not surprising as this neighbourhood in the city centre is just a short walk from Copenhagen’s botanical gardens and is right next to one of the three inner-city lakes.

Keeping this incomparable flair really mattered to Dueholm: “It was of utmost importance that the renovation of our town house would be based on natural, long-lasting and sustainable materials. Our aim was for anything that we added to the house to feel just as natural as the 150-year-old brick façades and the wooden beams.” This can particularly be seen in the timeless and yet very modern kitchen designed for the family by Nordiska Kök with its BORA Pure cooktop extractor system.

Small but powerful

The design of the divided wooden fronts in the kitchen, for example, is inspired by the building’s façade with its brick cladding. The wall units above the sink are also reminiscent of the houses in the Kartoffelrækkerne district: just like the houses, the cupboards are the same shape and size, but all differ in the detail. And just like the architectural structure of the narrow town house, the kitchen doesn’t have much free space. However, by no means does it seem narrow or cluttered. This is thanks to the clean lines of the minimalist Scandinavian design and not least the BORA Pure cooktop extractor system.

Despite the limited space, the stainless steel worktop houses an oversized cooktop with four high-performance cooking zones and a cooktop extractor. The flush installation of the cooking area means that it practically merges with the worktop. What’s more, the low installation height of the whole extractor system leaves plenty of storage space in the unit below for kitchen utensils and, thanks to the downdraft extractor, there is room at head height for even more storage in the wall units. Cooking vapours and odours are effectively suctioned downwards. And all this functionality is enveloped in an award-winning design: the controls and lighting on the BORA Pure are virtually invisible in standby mode and when in operation they are limited to the bare essentials. A scaled-down, minimalist appearance that fits in perfectly with the kitchen of this Copenhagen town house.