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A kitchen made five years ago for Josephine Yaa Akuamoa’s File Under Pop studio has been relocated to her home on Copenhagen’s Paper Island. The move places a previously used ash-and-zinc kitchen at the center of a renovated, three-level house; the design account presents reuse as both a practical challenge and a deliberate design choice.
A five-year-old kitchen by Danish company Garde Hvalsøe, originally built for designer Josephine Yaa Akuamoa’s File Under Pop workspace, has been installed in her new home on Copenhagen’s Paper Island. The kitchen now anchors the renovated house’s ground-floor kitchen and dining area, making the project a documented example of an existing, purpose-built interior being reused in a different setting.
The kitchen is Garde Hvalsøe’s Solid model, made from ash on a zinc frame. Its long, wide drawer fronts show the wood grain, while chamfered drawer sides let the fronts sit closely together and appear as continuous planks. The upper cabinets have Koshi-do fronts, developed by Garde Hvalsøe with Copenhagen-based OEO Studio and described in the report as bringing Japanese aesthetics together with Danish craftsmanship.
Before installation, the house was stripped back. The work included demolishing the existing kitchen and its electrical installations, as well as removing the bathroom, wooden wall panels and the staircase linking the three floors. The resulting layout places the kitchen and dining area on the ground floor, bedrooms on the middle level and an adaptable room at the top. The home also has views toward the sea and sky on one side and a shared garden on the other.
Garde Hvalsøe also made bespoke ash wardrobes for the house. The interior combines wood, raw stone and ceramics, with ash used throughout and limestone chosen to echo the harbor’s sandstone walls and yellow brick in neighboring buildings, according to Design Milk’s report.
A Second Setting for the Kitchen
The project shows how a kitchen designed around one workspace can be given a new role in a home, rather than being treated as a fixed part of the building where it was first installed. In this case, the kitchen’s five years in a studio did not prevent it from becoming the central feature of a later residential renovation. The report does not describe the move as a standard or simple process: Garde Hvalsøe’s chief executive called it a challenge as well as a statement.
For readers interested in interiors and renovation, the move also highlights the decisions involved in combining a pre-existing, highly specified object with a substantially altered house. The kitchen’s ash, zinc and lava sink had to sit within a new interior that uses limestone, ceramics and other materials. Akuamoa said she sees those elements as complementary and capable of aging gracefully. That is her assessment of the materials, not a measured finding about their long-term performance.
Paper Island’s conversion into a contemporary residential setting gives the project an additional architectural dimension. The reused kitchen is not simply shown in a new room: it is part of a redesigned house on an island whose buildings draw on a harbor and warehouse history. The report offers a specific design case, rather than evidence about how widely kitchen reuse is taking place or whether it reduces costs or environmental impacts.
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From Studio to Harbor Home
Garde Hvalsøe made the kitchen for File Under Pop, Akuamoa’s studio, five years before it was moved into the Paper Island house, according to Design Milk. The company had worked with Akuamoa on another home as well. In the reported project, the kitchen’s previous use is part of the story: it had already been made and lived with before the team placed it in a newly built space.
Paper Island has served different purposes over time. The source says it was an armory for the Danish navy under Christian IV and later a paper warehouse for national newspapers. The new building takes cues from the island’s historic harbor warehouses, including wooden maritime gates and a diagonal roof element referencing Copenhagen harbor architecture.
Akuamoa’s interior design draws on the island’s surroundings, with views of water and open sky shaping the material palette. The report describes the house as using nearly equal parts wood, raw stone and ceramics. It does not provide a full project chronology, the home’s construction date or details of the kitchen’s original installation.
““Bringing something previously used and lived in into a newly built space was both a challenge and a statement.””
— Søren Lundh Aagaard, Garde Hvalsøe partner and CEO, as quoted by Design Milk
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Details the Report Leaves Open
Design Milk’s account does not say when the kitchen was moved, how it was dismantled or adapted for the house, or whether any parts had to be replaced. It also does not give the project’s budget, the cost of the renovation or a comparison with installing a new kitchen.
The source describes the kitchen as five years old and identifies its materials and model, but does not report measurements, technical assessments or the condition of its components before and after relocation. It also makes no quantified claim about cost savings or environmental benefits. Those outcomes should not be inferred from the fact that the kitchen was reused.
The account does not identify the building’s architect, provide a construction or completion timeline, or explain the permitting and building process. The installation is presented as part of a completed home project, but further project details have not been supplied in the source material.
Japanese Danish style kitchen fronts
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The Home’s Next Chapter
The reported development is the kitchen’s installation in Akuamoa’s Paper Island home; the source does not announce a further renovation phase, opening date or public event. The house is described with its ground-floor kitchen and dining area, upper-floor bedrooms and adaptable top-level room, but no schedule for additional work is given.
Any further account of the project would need to clarify the kitchen’s relocation process, its current condition and whether the house has additional planned changes. For now, the confirmed story is the move itself and the way Garde Hvalsøe’s existing Solid kitchen has been incorporated into the renovated home.
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Key Questions
What happened to the kitchen?
The Garde Hvalsøe kitchen was moved from Josephine Yaa Akuamoa’s File Under Pop studio into her home on Copenhagen’s Paper Island, where it now anchors the ground-floor kitchen and dining area.
How old is the kitchen?
Design Milk reports that the kitchen spent its first five years in a workspace before being installed in Akuamoa’s home. The report does not give the date of the move.
What is the kitchen made from?
The kitchen is Garde Hvalsøe’s Solid model, built from ash on a zinc frame. Akuamoa also highlighted its lava sink. The upper cabinets use Koshi-do fronts developed with OEO Studio.
What changed during the house renovation?
The team removed the existing kitchen and its electrical installations, the bathroom, wooden wall panels and the staircase connecting the three floors. The new layout puts the kitchen and dining area on the ground floor, with bedrooms above and an adaptable room at the top.
Is the reuse shown to have saved money or reduced environmental impact?
The source does not provide cost figures or environmental measurements. It reports that the kitchen was reused, but does not quantify savings or environmental effects.
Source: rss
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