Lagom #8

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The Drifter hotel, New Orleans / A stunning writer’s retreat in the woods of the Pacific Northwest / Coffee and architecture at Kokko, Stavanger / A guide to Barcelona’s craft beer scene from the team behind Caña Magazine

Glasgow-based Jono Smart on pottery’s mental health benefits / The work of artist Jack Hughes, London / A fresh approach to work-life balance from Brooklyn’s Haptic Lab / Art, science, and plants with Haenke in Prague

Climbing Northern Ireland’s rugged coastline / An insider’s guide to surf spots around Los Angeles / Bread and beer at La Chola Dasso, Lima, with an exclusive recipe / Naked wine at JAJA, Berlin

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Thank you to our partners KeepCup Reform Vifa Xero

Thank you to our patrons Abstract goabstract.com Campfire campfire.agency Serena McNair

Lagom is a lifestyle magazine connecting a global community of like-minded creatives who care about thoughtful design, independent travel, and a balanced approach to life.

Find us online at readlagom.com

On our website, we publish selected material from the magazine, as well as occasional exclusives.

Visit readlagom.com on your desktop, tablet, or phone for your regular source of inspiration — and follow @readlagom on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

ED ITOR S’ LE TTER I

nspiration can present itself in many forms: artefacts, people, places, ideas, or even methods and processes. In this issue, we look into alternative ways of making work fit around personal needs and requirements by speaking with makers such as Jono Smart, a Glasgow-based independent potter, and Emily Fischer, of Brooklyn-based Haptic Labs. Both entrepreneurs left their fast-paced careers in advertising and architecture, respectively, to find a way of life that worked for them, abandoning conformity to structure a more suitable work-life balance and immerse themselves in the creative process. For Jono, while creating his earthenware, he found it was possible to recover from the depression that had blighted him for years. For Emily, stepping back from working long hours allowed her to spend more time with her young daughter while pursuing her passions by running her own business.

This resonates with us, personally, as parents of two young daughters — we welcomed our second in February, during the latter stages of this issue’s creation. Finding an adequate balance between work and family life can be challenging, and finding time to build a business on top of that can sometimes seem like an unattainable goal. But learning about others’ struggles — and the methods and processes they use to find their own balance — motivates us to push on, and, as always, we’re proud to tell their stories.

‘Going against the grain’ is a theme that has appeared in every edition of Lagom that we’ve

produced, but you’ll find extensive evidence of an independent approach to work and life throughout the pages that follow. From The Drifter — a former motel in a traditionally rough part of New Orleans — to Kokko in Stavanger — which combines a coffee shop, coffee roastery, and architecture studio — to Praguebased Haenke — a botanical lab, education platform, arts space, and concept store — a passion for the unexpected is everywhere. We conclude with an essay on the naked wine revolution, written by Julia Giese of JAJA Berlin, which marries the themes of thinking outside the box and the importance of the process on the final product.

You might notice that for this issue, we’re proud to be supported by our first ever Lagom Patrons — you’ll see their names inside the cover. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a patron, too.

You can find details on lagom.direct / patron.

CRE DIT S Writers

Photographers

Proofreaders

Caleb Thal (USA) Elliot Jay Stocks (UK) Emily Fischer (USA) James Davidson (Spain) Jono Smart (UK) Julia Giese (Germany) Lorcan Quinn (UK) Samantha Stocks (UK) Shaun Pett (Canada)

Caleb Thal (USA) Christina Riley (UK) Elliot Jay Stocks (UK) Leila Ashtari (Canada) Martin Laugesen (Denmark) Michael Cooper (USA) Norman Posselt (Germany) Ole Marius Skjærseth (Norway) Rafael Soldi (USA) Simon Mills (UK) Teodorik Mensl (Czech Republic) Yanina Shevchenko (Spain)

Caitlin Lawless (UK) Kacie McGeary (USA) Erik Spiekermann — Resident Typomaniac (Germany / UK / USA)

Editors Samantha Stocks Editor & Editorial Director

Elliot Jay Stocks Editor & Creative Director

Lagom, volume 1, number 8. ISSN 2056-4503.

Published in May 2018 by Margin Media Ltd. © 2018 Margin Media Ltd. and the respective contributors. All rights reserved. Designed by Elliot Jay Stocks and typeset in Tabac, Tabac Sans, and Tabac Title (designed by Tomáš Brousil). Cover photo by Leila Ashtari. Editors’ portraits by Dan Rubin. World map illustration by Jayde Perkin.

Printed by Taylor Brothers in Bristol, UK. Distributed in the UK by MMS and globally by Export Press.

Write to us at editors@readlagom.com and visit us at readlagom.com. Find us as @readlagom on instagram facebook twitter

C ONTEN T S p 92 p 112

p 24 p 50

p 16

p 42, p 84 p 124 p 58, p 76 p 66 p 32

p 70 p 100

p 10

p 116

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p 10 / The Drifter, New Orleans

p 50 / Reshaped

p 92 / New Heights

p 16 / Home Visit: Anna Hoover

p 58 / Artist Profile: Jack Hughes

p 100 / Surfing LA

p 24 / Kokko, Stavanger

p 66 / Lagom × Xero

p 112 / Lagom × KeepCup

p 32 / Caña Magazine’s Guide to Craft Beer in Barcelona

p 70 / Lessons in Leaning Out

p 116 / La Chola Dasso, Lima

p 76 / Seeds of Change

p 124 / Naked Truth

p 42 / Lagom × Vifa p 84 / Lagom × Reform

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The Drifter, New Orleans This hotel — a former motel in a traditionally rough part of New Orleans — isn’t afraid to go against the grain.

Co-founder Jayson Seidman explains his motivations behind the space and how it reflects his own sense of being a ‘drifter’. Human connection, he says, has to be the most important part of a hotel guest’s experience.

WORDS Elliot Jay Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS courtesy of The Drifter

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“I

like the grit. I like the contrast,” says serial hotelier Jayson Seidman, who’s made a career out of opening boutique hotels in rough neighbourhoods.

Tulane Avenue, the street on which The Drifter is

located, was once called Highway 61, connecting New Orleans to Memphis and beyond, and appropriately nicknamed ‘The Blues Highway’. In the 1950s, when the 20-room property was built, it arrived at the peak

of America’s motel boom, but when the US Interstate system was introduced in the 1980s, and the new Interstate road bypassed Highway 61, the motel and many other businesses in the locale fell upon tougher times, and the neighbourhood has been widely considered “pretty rough”, as Jayson describes it, ever since.

“If you’d told anybody you’re doing a project on Tulane Avenue, they’d say, ‘you’re nuts’. This was the last pocket of New Orleans to get any kind of development.”

However, Jayson is keen to point out that he’s not a fan of the word ‘gentrification’. “Mainly because I’m not about displacing people,” he explains. “I’m about working within the local fabric of the community.”

Purchased as a just-about-running motel in 2016, and then reopened as a hotel after a year’s worth of renovation, the property’s transformation cannot be understated — and yet The Drifter is nothing short of unassuming from the outside. The name ‘The Drifter’ isn’t actually written anywhere, and the hotel’s main entrance is now around the side of the building. “It’s not like we’re going for a speakeasy thing,” Jayson explains, “but if you look at the building from the outside,

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Unless it’s real, should you be pretending to be old? If it’s a new building, make it modern! If it’s old, maybe pay tribute to what it was.

Jayson Seidman

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you can’t really tell what it is. When you step inside, it’s like this Wizard of Oz thing: you move from the blackand-white film into this world of vivid colour.”

One of the first changes Jayson and his team made was to dig trenches into the parking lot and turn it into a landscape garden — “the goal was to make this an oasis” — but it’s the vibrancy of the interior that most obviously conveys the building’s new lease of life. Combining multiple aesthetics, periods, and places manifests itself in what Jayson calls the ‘low-high’ game: “The ‘low’ element is that this is a 1950s motel — it’s not something architecturally impressive — and I saved as much money as possible on the design choices. I put in Mexican tile floors, all the beds are platform beds built into the wall. But the ‘high’ element is all the little touch points: our lighting is from Nicole Cota Studio, Jax, and Zangra; the linen is from Frette; the toiletries are from Aesop. You see a bottle of Aesop in an old motel room and it’s kind of cool.”

It’s obvious that a lot of consideration has been given to The Drifter’s aesthetics, especially with a keen eye for would-be Instagrammers. “If someone were to photograph the room while staying there, it should be equally as beautiful as when it’s empty — if not better.”

And yet a cursory glance at the brand’s own Instagram page might leave you surprised to find almost no pictures of the hotel itself. “They’re my photos,” Jayson says, proudly. “Usually they’re current, so when I’m travelling, they’re what I’m seeing — what’s inspiring me. It’s all with the slight nod to what I believe it is to be a drifter.”

However, it’s not all about looking cool. Far from it, in fact. For Jayson, authenticity is the key. “So many hotel brands are trying to play off this hipster revolution. You know: how many Edison light bulbs can you see? Oh, yet another restoration look? Unless it’s real, should you be pretending to be old? If it’s a new building, make it modern! If it’s old, maybe pay tribute to what it was.” And so The Drifter is a gentle homage to mid-century motels, but also a deeply personal expression of Jayson’s own tastes and experiences.

“The design intent was to transcend time,” he says.

“Sure, to be aware of elements of the 50s — because it’s referenced in the architecture — but then you move forward.” There’s inspiration from Jayson’s time spent travelling in Mexico and Japan, and his living in Miami and New York. “I’ve worked on quite a few hotels, but this one is definitely my baby,” he admits.

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All of this makes me wonder if The Drifter is, perhaps, named after him. “It’s kind of a tribute to my own story, of drifting around the world as a massive sponge,” he says. “But also to reflect the drifters who come here to New Orleans. This city doesn’t really have any major industry besides tourism, so if you’re coming here, you’re coming here for the right reasons: the quality of life, the climate, the food, the music, the culture — deeper reasons beyond simply getting work.”

Staying at The Drifter is an undeniably visual experience, but it goes way beyond the imagery and the artistry, and these are feelings Jayson shares: “For me, the most important thing is the guest experience. How were they treated? How did they feel? How warm of a welcome did they receive? All of my staff are extremely talented and really good about connecting people, and connecting with people.” He explains that he always wants there to be some form of dialogue.

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“For instance, I don’t have bar menus; as well as it being wasteful to print them, our bartender will simply ask people what drink they like. He or she will say, ‘If you don’t like this, don’t worry, I’ll make you something else’, and I want people to feel like they’ve been treated to a tremendous level of hospitality and warmth.”

A stay at The Drifter, or a visit to its bar, might be a treat for the senses, and glimpse inside its co-founder’s head, but above all, human connection appears to be the most important part of the experience. “Those hotel desks where you check yourself in via your phone — sure, they’re cool,” Jayson says. “But people need reminding that we’re here to live amongst each other.” L Visit The Drifter at 3522 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70119, USA, or online at thedrifterhotel.com

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Home Visit: Anna Hoover The Scavenger Hut is a bespoke-designed writing studio, and the part-time home of filmmaker and printmaker Anna Hoover. Working with Les Eerkes at Olson Kundig Architects on creating a space that overlooks beautiful Puget Sound in Washington State, Anna has tailored the studio to meet her needs, with dramatic results.

INTERVIEW Samantha Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS Rafael Soldi

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hy did you decide to have the studio custombuilt, instead of looking for a place that already existed? Did you have a vision for it long before you began planning for it?

The studio was built on a family property in a setting dear to my heart. It all started with the acquisition of a Glen Alps Printing Press — I trained in printmaking in college — deserving of a worthy and inspired home.

I’d been cutting ideas from magazines and had been keeping a list of desired functions of the space, such as an open floor plan, high ceilings, guest sleeping quarters, a work area, a fireplace for heat, and plenty of natural light.

What do you primarily use the studio for?

Primarily, I write there. The lofty ceilings and white walls lend themselves nicely to open headspace. I also have speakers to play music that fits the mood. As I’m a relatively new mother, I’ve only had a handful of chances to use my printing press.

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Was having a minimal impact on the environment important to you during the build?

I’m an environmentally conscious person. Any way I can reuse or recycle in my life, I do the extra work — whether it’s rinsing food containers, drinking from reusable water bottles, or shopping thrift stores, I get satisfaction out of knowing I’m leaving a slightly smaller footprint.

I wanted to continue this thread throughout the building process. We even contemplated a dry toilet system, which, in the end, didn’t win out.

The stair treads, kitchen cabinets, granite countertops, and a few other appliances were all discards, ready for the embrace of a new home. With minimal help, I took the cabinets and countertops out of a teardown home myself. As well as the plants and shrubs used for landscaping, I rented a U-Haul, brought my shovel and wheelbarrow, dug up plants, and brought them home. Friends and neighbours helped me plan and get them in the ground.

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Did the final build end up like what you’d imagined?

Or was it different to your original idea?

I didn’t have an exact picture in my mind as to what the building would look like. I was more focused on the functionality of the space, which is nearly exactly as I had imagined.

What are your favourite features of the studio?

The bedroom is grand. At one of the early design phases, there weren’t any operable windows upstairs, so we transformed the only solid wall in the room into a giant door, which is five-feet wide by 13-feet tall.

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Tom Kundig’s 1 projects are known for their ‘gizmos’, and this door is this house’s gizmo. The door opens on a counterbalance system, with chains, gears, and 200-pound weights that make it slide down and up to open and close. The bed sits next to the door at nearly four-feet tall and when the door is open, you feel like

1. olsonkundig.com

you’re sleeping outdoors, not to mention sharing in the view of Puget Sound.

My other favourite feature is the fireplace. I grew up warming by the heat of a wood-burning stove and, in my opinion, there’s nothing else like it. I love the saying that, if you heat your home with wood, you

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warm yourself twice — because you have to work to get the wood ready to start the fire.

tall ceilings and luscious view of my studio do lend themselves well to creative thoughts.

Do you have your artwork in the Scavenger Hut, and do you have a favourite piece you keep there?

Do you prefer one location or residence over the other?

Does one feel more like home?

I have one carving in the studio that I created, which is about eight-inches tall. Also, in the space is an eightfoot-tall carving done by my father, John Hoover, who taught me how to carve. We’re lucky to still have it, as my father is no longer with us, and it’s a great tribute to his talent and committed expression.

Alaska is my home, but I poured so much of myself into the creation of this space that it is a manifestation of many a deep thought and desire, and will always hold a cherished place in my heart, mind, and creative outpourings. L

I understand that you split your time between Puget Sound and Bristol Bay. Does your place in Alaska differ from the Scavenger Hut? I married and moved to Alaska, and my home up there is very different, but I have a view of a river and find time to visit my Washington home throughout the year. In terms of my work, I strive to be inspired regardless of my surroundings, but the white walls,

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Kokko, Stavanger Coffee shop, coffee roaster, and… architecture studio? It’s all in a day’s work for coffee-loving architect Ole Marius Skjærseth, whose combination of work and play has helped ignite a passionate coffee scene in one of Norway’s most beautiful cities.

WORDS Elliot Jay Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS Ole Marius Skjærseth

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he pairing of a coffee shop and a coffee roastery is quite the winning combination — if you’ve ever walked into a café like The Barn in Berlin, or Sightglass in San Francisco, you’ll know that the arresting sights, sounds, and smells of roasting coffee make for fantastic foreplay while you wait for your brew to be made. But at Kokko, in Norway’s picturesque city of Stavanger, a third and seemingly unconnected component forms part of the equation: an architecture studio.

This unique, three-pronged business is the brainchild of Ole Marius Skjærseth, a Stavanger native whose career in architecture melds perfectly with his passion for coffee. And, being an architect afforded Ole a luxury most of us don’t have: to be in complete control over how he wanted to build his business.

Quite literally. “I’ve always been interested in coffee,” he says. “But I like viewing the coffee shop as an urban concept, if you will.”

Kokko opened its doors just under two years ago, but has its origins in a bouldering accident two years prior that took Ole off a new-build villa project,

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for which he had moved back home to Stavanger from Trondheim, where he studied. In need of some recovery time, Ole decided to stay in Stavanger and found himself in need of an office.

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The former house that would eventually transform into Kokko became available and, although its status as a listed building proved difficult — at one point having its entire facade removed to get the roaster

onto the second floor, and needing the whole roof changed to install windows on the top floor — Ole designed a new interior that could accommodate a meeting room and showroom on one floor, an office

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space and room for roasting on another, and two floors for the public-facing coffee shop. Through a glass window in the café’s ceiling, it’s possible to look up and see the roaster on the next floor.

Bringing the public into his domain might seem like another not-particularly-logical choice, but for Ole, it was a way of welcoming Stavanger’s coffee-lovers into his ideal office. “I wanted to make a space where people could find inspiration,” he explains. “A space where architecture could be made to feel more accessible.” The lower floor acts as a gallery of sorts, showcasing books and magazines loved by the staff. But actually the entire space is a showcase: every item of furniture is for sale, numerous household goods are available to purchase and, of course, Kokko is something of a showroom for Ole’s own work — multiple clients of Kokko-the-architecture-practice started out as customers of Kokkothe-coffee-shop. And for all of this to work, Ole employs shop manager

Solveig, roaster Brigette, and a talented team of baristas. He also shares his office space with carpenter and frequent collaborator Felix, who was a crucial part of the actual building of the interior.

Despite the Nordic region’s reputation in the coffee world, and highly regarded roasters such as

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Tim Wendelboe in near-ish Oslo, there was almost no speciality / third wave coffee scene in Stavanger when Kokko first appeared. Now, the city boasts several excellent cafés. But Kokko still remains unique: “Having a roastery in the same building, and in the city centre, is something a bit different,” Ole explains. “Plus, we have

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the control over the whole product.” That control and dedication to quality has led to Kokko selling beans beyond their own space: “We’ve started to sell our beans to other coffee shops and restaurants,” Ole says.

One of those just happens to be the Re-Naa, one of Stavanger’s Michelin-starred restaurants.

And, as more and more lifestyle brands are beginning to showcase and sell their wares in the shop — “I was really happy when we managed to incorporate Fredericia Furniture, who are one of my favourites,” Ole enthuses — the founder’s vision of combining architecture with coffee and design as a whole continues to cement in the minds of Kokko’s customers, clients, and visitors. But Ole’s vision is more than just an unusual combination of practices; it’s a perfect example of how combining one’s work with one’s passions can result in something that is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. L Visit Kokko at Østervåg 43, 4006 Stavanger, Norway, or online at kokkokokko.no

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Caña Magazine’s Guide to Craft Beer in Barcelona We asked Caña Magazine 1 founder James Davidson to take us on a hop-laden tour of his adopted home city of Barcelona — a city at the forefront of Europe’s ever-evolving craft beer community.

WORDS James Davidson PHOTOGRAPHS Yanina Shevchenko

1. canamagazine.com

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➎ ➑ ➎ ➏ ➌ ➊➎ ➍➋➊ ➋

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➒ ➌ ➋ ➊

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‘Beerxample’ area bars

Bars across the city

➊ Garage Beer Co. ➋ BierCaB ➌ Mikkeller ➍ BrewDog ➎ NaparBCN

➊ Kælderkold ➋ Ølgod ➌ Ale&Hop ➍ La Rovira ➎The Growler

➏ CocoVail Beer Hall ➐ Bodega Fermín ➑ La Cervesera Artesana ➒ El Drapaire De La Cervesa Artesana ➓ Abirradero

Breweries

Shops

➊ BlackLab ➋ Edge Brewing ➌ Caravelle

➊ BierCaB ShoP ➋ Rosses i Torrades ➌ Bodega La Beata ➍ Family Beer ➎ La Bodega del Sol

Opposite: Map created using the Mapbox API. Map data © OpenStreetMap. Please note that locations are approximate.

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radled in the ungainly embrace of the Serra de Collserola mountain range, with the Llobregat River to its south-west and the Besòs to its north, Barcelona’s geography — just five kilometres between 1,680 ft Tibidabo and the Mediterranean — has forced a dense population upon a surprisingly small footprint. Its beaches, with tourists crammed onto every grain of sand, had not existed prior to the 1992 Olympic Games; now, they are a symbol of a hedonistic appeal that can tip unevenly balanced scales of social integration. Barcelona and its people can be contrary, and there can be a rural reluctance to change, but get under its skin and you’ll be rewarded with magic, eccentricity, and a wide-eyed precondition for creativity.

Age-old Catalan rituals, such as the Correfocs (‘fire runs’) and the human towers erected by the Castellers, are unavoidable; so too are the ceaseless cycle of neighbourhood festivals. Surreal scenes — volunteers showering the streets with candy during Sant Medir, ‘bandits’ firing blunderbusses into the sky, a nativity scene dedicated to defecation — lurk around any corner at any time, without explanation, nor

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rhyme or reason. Tradition and culture are entrenched in the city’s way of life and its past is inescapable, and yet, is forward-thinking, modernistic, and a torchbearer of the avant-garde. Many things to many people, this complex city — with its history of anarchism and independent disposition — has an irrepressible spirit that can capture and enrapture you.

A city of paradoxes and surprises, Barcelona has a history that has been punctuated by moments of profound change, reinvention, and rehabilitation. For all of its twists and turns, evolution and revolution, there’s lots you know about Barcelona, and lots you

don’t. You know Gaudí, but do you know the equally significant Lluís Domènech i Montaner, or Josep Puig i Cadafalch? You know Messi and his team, who are més que un club. But do you know that the abbreviation ‘Barça’ exists solely for them; that the accepted shortening for the city is Barna (or BCN). Do you know Gustave Eiffel’s Parisian landmark was once destined for the Catalan capital, before being sent packing by a city council who deemed it overly radical?

You definitely know Estrella Damm. But do you know that Barcelona was the nucleus of Southern Europe’s craft beer boom? Well, you do now.

“There’s a buzz to the place,” says Alberto Zamborlin of Garage Beer Co., the progressive brewery that feels like the catalyst to the scene’s eruption onto the global stage in recent years. “Now, with Cyclic Beer Farm opening, you’ve got ten brewpubs in the centre of Barcelona — more if you include the suburbs. That’s nuts when you think that there were two just three years ago.” Serving as a metaphor for the movement’s explosion in those three years, Garage itself has gone from a compact city-centre brewpub to a full-scale, out-of-town, 1,000m² brewery putting out 2,600 hectolitres per annum. In June, they will expand to 7,000.

“In my native Italy,” Zamborlin continues, “there’s a higher per cent penetration than Spain on a national level, in terms of the volume of beer consumed being craft, but nowhere in Southern Europe has the same ‘epicentre’ feel to it as Barcelona.” As a midpoint of that epicentre, the brewpub remains one of the city’s most buzzing venues, and is a stone’s throw from BierCaB, the 30-tap homage to craft beer excellence that paved the way for this part of Barcelona’s Eixample district to be rechristened Beerxample. Ranked fourth on RateBeer’s list of top international beer destinations, BierCaB pull in cachet kegs from around the world; names from Crooked Stave to Omnipollo, Cantillon to Evil Twin, popping up alongside accomplished local brews on their constantly rotating beer list.

Barcelona’s story of craft beer — or cervesa artesana — goes back much further than BierCaB, though: it goes back to 1993, when Liverpool-born honorary

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Catalan Steve Huxley opened the city’s first brewpub.

Huxley wrote the book on craft beer in Catalonia (literally, it’s called La Cerveza… Poesía Líquida), and his death in 2015 was felt throughout the city’s beer community. The fact that drinks are paid for in ‘Huxleys’ at Barcelona Beer Festival (one of Europe’s largest), that Garage still regularly tap Steve’s Best Bitter, and that his distinct image — beret and unkempt grey beard — can still be seen in many of Barcelona’s best bars, confirms the impact he had across the region he made his home. “He was a teacher,” explains Alberto, who found his feet in the industry after taking a course at Steve’s Academy. “But even more so, a motivator.

“His brother Gary told me he had been a swimming coach,” Zamborlin continues, “and that didn’t surprise me. Without Steve, we wouldn’t have set up our original brewpub; he pushed us into doing it. We originally considered gypsy brewing, but he wasn’t having any of it. He’d just say, ‘you can make it happen — just make sure you’re making great beer and the rest will follow’.”

Also having a hand in setting up numerous other breweries — such as Agullons and Dougalls — as well as encouraging the guys behind Barcelona Beer Festival, Huxley was the embodiment of beer in Barcelona, an

inimitable character, fiercely independent, uncompromising and intelligent, incorrigible and roguish. “You can almost live by drinking only beer,” he told Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia in 2012. His was a passion that started a revolution.

Today, BierCaB and Garage Beer Co. are surrounded by excellent bars: big names like Mikkeller and BrewDog are close by, and NaparBCN — an expansive brewpub offshoot of acclaimed Pamplona brewer Naparbier — has collaborated with breweries such as Magic Rock and Siren. Down in the oft-chaotic neighbourhoods of Gòtic and El Raval, Kælderkold and sister bar Ølgod entertain tourists and thirsty locals until the early hours; cosmopolitan El Born is home to

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Ale&Hop; laid-back Gràcia has La Rovira, an old-school tapas bar with an incredible beer selection; Dreta de l’Eixample hosts this writer’s favourite local, The Growler, 24-tap American-style beer hall CocoVail, and long-established bars like La Bona Pinta and Il Birrino.

In a city of diverse barris, there is craft beer for all. Flanked by the multi-million-pound yachts at Port Vell, BlackLab is the city’s sunniest brewpub, whilst Bodega Fermín is to Barceloneta what La Rovira is to Gràcia; Poble-sec has Huxley’s old haunt, Cervecería Jazz; and Barna-Brew brings Belgian-influenced beer to hip Sant Antoni. Catalonia at large is also hugely invested in the revolution taking place in its capital; names like La Pirata, Agullons, and SOMA are held in high esteem.

Meanwhile, Alberto and the team at Garage are globetrotting off the back of their universally acclaimed brews. Hosting beer festivals from Iceland to Miami, exporting throughout Europe, undertaking collaborations with breweries such as Cloudwater and Other Half — their rise is symbolic of their city’s scene as a whole. “There have been many memorable moments,” admits the Italian of their fast-paced first three years. “Opening our new brewery on the outskirts of the city; having 700 people show up to celebrate with us, becoming a wholesale brewery and seeing our beers on sale around town… but it’s still great to have a drink at the original brewpub. When it’s buzzing on a Friday night, that’s my favourite place in the world to get a pint.”

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If the hordes that packed in during their recent Barcelona Beer Festival after-parties are anything to go by, plenty agree. Garage and the countless other names and faces who make up the Barcelona beer movement have harnessed the unflinching creativity of their city, its fiercely independent spirit, and its inescapable

curiosity. There’s lots you know about Barcelona, and lots you don’t. Its fervent beer scene, though, will not remain a secret much longer. L

P A R T N E R F E AT U R E

× We’ve partnered with Vifa to showcase their speakers that not only sound fantastic, but look fantastic as well.

Since they recently released new versions of their portable speakers, and a new multi-room audio offering, we sat down with acoustic engineer Mikael Ankersen to find out what makes Vifa products so influential.

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hen it comes to excellence in audio fidelity, Danish firms are usually regarded with an air of veneration. And for Vifa, which started life as a supplier of loudspeaker drivers for the Danish radio and television businesses in 1933, it’s fair to say that the company has contributed significantly to that reputation.

But the Vifa of today — a brand renewed in 2012 by a handful of employees — is about speakers that not only sound fantastic, but look fantastic as well, and sit in any room as a prized piece of furniture. “I think I have

WORDS Elliot Jay Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS courtesy of Vifa MIKAEL PORTRAIT Martin Laugesen

a different approach to other acoustic engineers,” says Mikael Ankersen. “I believe that it’s better for the industrial designers to have complete freedom from the beginning of the project. If I was an old-school acoustic engineer, I’d always be coming up with an MDF shoebox, and telling designers, ‘please make this look nice’. That would never make an award-winning design.”

Mikael describes Vifa’s product development process as “a lot of back-and-forth”, but explains that a balance is always achieved.

“Although my focus is in audio engineering, my role sees me involved in all of the steps between industrial design drawing and mechanical engineering.”

Putting aesthetic choices front-and-centre has not been without its challenges, though, and Mikael tells a story about the wool used in the company’s first generation of Copenhagen and Stockholm speakers. “In order to let more sound through, the weave of the wool had to be

more open, and yet not be so loose as to fall off. It took a year of development with textile manufacturer Kvadrat, and, at one point, it was an idea that nearly died — it’s so easy to say, ‘no, it’s not possible’. But in the end, it paid off.

“From the very beginning,” Mikael explains, “our industrial designers went into great detail about how users should interact with the product — touching it, feeling it. A central point from where we started out was to intentionally move away from something with lots of buttons, to move away from something overtly masculine.”

There’s no doubt that Vifa’s aesthetics have struck a chord in the industry — other speaker manufacturers have clearly co-opted the visual style of these products — but it’s incredible to think that so much has been achieved by such a small company; Mikael is one of just seven

core members of staff. “Everyone has a great deal of responsibility in a product’s development, and we make very quick decisions,” Mikael says. “We don’t have to have a meeting with a management team every time we need to turn a piece of paper. Every single person is passionate about — and dedicated to — what we do. In my opinion, the entire process is a very nice mix of work and pleasure.” L Visit Vifa online at vifa.dk

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Reshaped Potter Jono Smart 1 traded in his successful career in the fast-paced world of advertising for the tactile experience of working with clay in his Glasgow studio. He credits the craft for more than just a career change, enabling him to recover from long-term depression. Here, he shares what he has learned from his experience as a potter — lessons that can easily be applied to any other profession, and even to other experiences in life.

WORDS Jono Smart PHOTOGRAPHS Christina Riley

1. jonosmart.co.uk

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ottery is magic. I can’t think of another word for it. All of the elements can be explained: the centrifugal force that keeps the clay on the wheel, how during the firing at 348 degrees the chemically bonded water leaves the pot and it is irreversibly changed, how a glaze matures and makes the pot impervious to water. All of these things are known and are not magic, merely process. The magic is in a handmade pot. You can sense the person who made it, and feel the idea long after it has left the potter’s studio. There’s a kind of residue of human touch that’s left in all the marks and imperfections.

These hold the magic.

I haven’t always been a potter.

When I moved to London in my early twenties, I worked in advertising and then garden design.

I got to travel, eat at amazing restaurants, and live in a city full of life and excitement.

And then I got ill. Really quite ill. I spent two years in bed with depression and undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Fitful restarts, desperate attempts to get going again — nothing seemed to work.

After years of what felt like success, I felt like a failure.

I’m not sure I would have recovered if I hadn’t discovered pottery. Craft lends itself to metaphor. You take a raw material — be it wood, clay or stone — and you turn it into something. It takes time, care, and skill. As I learned pottery, I felt like I was slowly remaking myself — changing, going through fire, and coming out the other side as something else. It’s hard not to see yourself reflected back by the process.

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Making good pots is a mixture of remembering and forgetting. You’ve got to learn as much as you can, practise your techniques, have as much skill and knowledge as possible, and then go into the studio and try to forget it all — otherwise the temptation is to try and show off everything you know within one pot, and you end up with something over-thought and contrived. You’ve got to get out of your own head and let the beauty of clay, glaze, and form do its own thing. There are moments in my studio when I can no longer feel the passage of time. It doesn’t happen often, but perhaps two or three times a month, I’ll hit a rhythm in my making, and a whole morning will pass in a moment. That isn’t an exaggeration. I’ll sit at the wheel with 70 or 80 balls of clay weighed out, press play on my music, and the next moment, there’ll be 80 cups sitting next to me. It can be a rather disorienting experience.

When I was learning pottery, I learned alongside a number of other people. We all noticed this sensation. There’s a Hungarian psychologist called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term ‘flow’

for this sensation. I’d never experienced it before pottery — complete absorption and concentration on a task that you’re competent at. It’s become the central reason I work. Everything else falls away, my mind rests, and the results are not important — just the moment and the process at hand.

I never learned to play a musical instrument.

I haven’t spent any time learning to paint or draw properly. I never really got into running or cycling.

Learning to make pots is the first time I did anything where I began at the very beginning and incrementally got better day by day, pot by pot.

Not only have I learned how to make pots, I’ve learned how to learn. The patience that it’s taken to allow myself to be rubbish at something and to appreciate the gradual, sometimes painstakingly slow improvement, is a completely new feeling. And I think it’s a healthy way to live.

If you’re going to survive as a potter, you have to learn to deal with failure. No matter how experienced you are, pots will break. You can throw a hundred good pots in a row and the hundred and first will collapse

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on you. Small mistakes in making only get revealed in the final firing.

Glazes will run, handles will snap, pots will be dropped — failure is a constant.

And I think this is a good thing, too. If you spend enough time making pots, a kind of acceptance is forced upon you. You learn that not everything is under your control. You can’t be perfect.

Mistakes aren’t disasters. This acceptance seeps into other parts of your life: you become calmer, more empathetic, forgiving.

My days are all very similar to one another. I enjoy the routine and discipline of a pottery studio.

A pot can’t be paused halfway through. Once you throw a pot, a clock starts ticking and you only have so much time to finish it — otherwise, it dries out. This is easy enough with one pot, but when

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you have hundreds going through the studio, all at different stages, it takes a fair amount of discipline to keep on top of things.

The studio has begun to feel like an extension of my mind. I know where every piece is, what the temperature is, and how long I’ve got to finish all the work.

Occasionally, there have been gaps between projects where there are no pots in process in the studio, and I feel a real unease.

The more I’ve worked, the more I’ve made, and the more I’ve examined my own creativity and come to a realisation. It’s that I’m basically adding very little.

All of the ideas, the research, the hours, the practice, and the making counts for very little when you compare it to what really matters.

And by that, I mean this: I didn’t create symmetry or texture or rhythm or greys or any of the culture, nature, and history that go into my work. I didn’t discover firing clay; I didn’t create the nostalgia you may feel when you hold a cup; I didn’t create the light and shadow that makes my pots look good. I’m a tiny funnel at the end of all of this. I’m never going to make a piece of work as impressive or important as a tree or a flower or the sunlight.

I think that to make good work, you have to admit how little you’re adding to it — that you’re synthesising so much else. The more you can get out of the way of it, the better and clearer the work will be.

And all of this is good news. It’s freeing to understand how unimportant my work is and will ever be.

It gives me the freedom to explore. And that’s my goal for the rest of my time: to explore as freely as I can let myself. L

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Artist Profile: Jack Hughes The retro aesthetic of Jack Hughes’ 1 illustrations has won him work from an impressive array of clients including Vogue, Adidas, Burberry, and The New York Times.

He opens up about balancing social expectations and creative slumps with productivity.

INTERVIEW Samantha Stocks ARTWORK courtesy of Jack Hughes

1. jack-hughes.com

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ave you always had an interest in art, or did something in particular inspire you to start creating?

I wasn’t a terribly academic child, even from a young age. My parents were very easy on me — they never pushed for me to better my grades in subjects like science and maths. I think their ultimate goal was for me to be happy and to encourage and support me in whatever path I chose, that path being art! It was the only real talent or interest I possessed from a young age, so it was only natural that I continued down this path lest I risk falling into a career I didn’t like, spending life regretting my earlier choices.

Did you go on to study illustration?

I discovered my love for illustration at Wimbledon Art College before continuing to study it at Kingston University — three very long and gruelling years.

When I think back to my time there, I don’t think of it fondly: I faced personal, social, and work challenges every day. But I’m grateful for the experience and wouldn’t change it.

So you didn’t enjoy your experience there?

University was a real hit to the ego, but in a good way: the tutors would knock you down so they could build you back up again.

On top of that, my peers were talented and creative in ways I couldn’t even comprehend, making the journey of finding my ‘voice’ disheartening.

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I also struggled with the social aspect of university life, which is demanding and carries with it more expectations. Although this got easier as the years went on, I often felt like an outsider. It’s probably worth mentioning that at the time, I wasn’t ‘out’ — I was still deep in the closet, and when you’re forced into social situations surrounded by people who gossip and speculate, it makes life incredibly hard. I was laden with anxiety, shame and depression, constantly trying to keep up appearances. I’d often have to close myself off in order to preserve my mental state, so that I could work in the most efficient way possible. I was there to learn.

Did your experiences at university have an influence over your illustrative style?

I never truly had a style at university. However, my peers could pick out my work from among a selection of projects taped to the wall. Although I had an aesthetic, I didn’t have a visual language, which felt disheartening, as so many people in my year had established their voice either right away, or were on their way to establishing one.

In comparison to my work now, back then, it was varied and very, very different. It wasn’t until clients started commissioning me that it became streamlined

and I found a style that felt comfortable, but not too comfortable that I immediately became complacent.

What are the main influencers of your work?

I used to look at a lot of sci-fi ephemera and midcentury advertising, constantly experimenting to find a happy marriage between the two. Later, my work shifted into that of the slick and sophisticated style of the fifties and sixties, which helped establish my earlier, post-university style that clients seemed to enjoy.

When you started out with your first client projects, how did you get your work on their radar?

During our degree show, I was scouted by an illustration agency, and a few weeks later, I was represented by them! My career from then on snowballed and now, I feel I’ve reached a comfortable plateau.

A large part of my career was formed solely because of one book I illustrated — The Gentleman’s Guide to Cocktails.2 The publisher stumbled across a simple Mad Men–inspired illustration I’d put up on my blog during my time at uni. She contacted me, and a year later, the job was well underway. It was this that established not only my style, but also my presence in the industry.

How do you collaborate with clients? Do you work from a brief, or are people open to being led by your ideas?

It’s a mixture of the two: some clients have a solid idea in their mind, whereas others give me free rein. I don’t have a preference for either approach.

Sometimes it’s nice and challenging to be directed.

Other times, it’s nice to explore something visually that I’ve been wanting to try out when a client allows me to do that.

Do you have a favourite project that you’ve worked on?

It’s difficult separating projects that I perceive as ‘favourites’ long after they’re completed, and jobs that were favourites when I was working on them. Some opened doors for me and it’s easy to regard them as favourites, as those projects tend to be the ones clients reference a lot. But I think my favourite has to be The Golden Age of Travel — a selection of digital

2. Hardie Grant Books, 2012

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postcards and social media illustrations I did for The Macallan 3 a few years back. They gave me almost free rein over the project, with only a very basic brief.

What’s your creative process from concept to completion? Does it differ much between jobs that are art-directed and those where you have free rein?

Half of the jobs I get in from clients already have the idea mapped out, usually accompanied by a rough sketch from the art director. For the times when I’m given full rein or just a loose brief, the ideas come to me quite clearly and without much trial and error.

I might use a sketchbook just to get the ideas down in their simplest form, which can help me visualise something my brain isn’t quite capable of doing on its own. I’ll then take these ideas into Photoshop and mock up something as close to the final as I can without committing to the level of detail required of a finished piece.

Do you ever suffer from creative block, and if so, what do you do to combat it?

I wouldn’t say I suffer from creative block in the traditional sense — the complete lack of creativity. When you’ve worked as a freelance illustrator for so long, you understand your working process, what you’re capable of, and how to manage a client’s expectations. At least for me, these things help keep up the momentum and stave off any creative block. I would say, however, that I do suffer from

3. themacallan.com

a lack of inspiration. Illustration doesn’t necessarily inspire me like it used to. I don’t feel compelled to pursue personal projects anymore, which is a real shame, and something I’m trying to work on.

Would you consider moving on from illustration one day to pursue another line of work?

I don’t have many transferable skills — illustration is all I know. I’m in an ‘eggs in one basket’ scenario, and I’m okay with that. Illustration in the broader sense is relatively versatile. It provides you with skill sets that can lend themselves to other aspects of the creative industry. L

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× We’ve partnered with Xero to tell their customers’ stories. Ade Hassan is the founder of Nubian Skin — a lingerie maker catering exclusively to women of colour.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS Elliot Jay Stocks

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or Ade Hassan, the decision to start Nubian Skin 1 was very much a case of scratching her own itch: astonished to find that the underwear market offered almost no ‘nude’ options for women of colour, she decided to ditch a successful career in finance to create some. “Shop assistants would say to me, ‘well, maybe you could wear black’,” she recalls. “But those options didn’t suit my skin tone — ‘nude’ at the time just meant beige.”

After a year and a half of product development, Ade launched Nubian Skin in 2014, bootstrapping the company herself with a little help from her family. Rather than make the jump straight into full-time business ownership, she eased out of her regular job by staying part time in her finance role for the first two months, which allowed her a small safety net while the company found its feet. In those early days, it was just Ade and her intern, but the viral success of an Instagram image — the same

1. nubianskin.com

striking photograph that now hangs on the showroom’s feature wall — led to quick success, and it wasn’t long before the demand for Nubian Skin’s four core products — lingerie in four distinct colours — called for more staff and larger premises.

I appear the morning after the company’s showroom launch party. Situated in the heart of London’s Fitzrovia, Nubian Skin’s offices are cosy, in true London fashion. But with a room for Ade and her two staff, and the showroom, their latest space is more than adequate — and provides a comfortable environment for customers to have bespoke fittings. “Lingerie is a very intimate thing, and women can be very sensitive about their bodies,” Ade explains. “A key part of my job is to make them feel comfortable — to make them feel good about themselves.”

Having such a personal connection with customers has always been important to the business, but with the US being one of Nubian

Skin’s biggest markets, the company has enjoyed international growth from the start. “The aim has always been to grow intelligently,” Ade says.

“There’s nothing wrong with the goal of being a successful small-to-medium enterprise”.

Nubian Skin is a relatively new company, and Ade has been using Xero almost since its inception. “Our initial system, which we used for about the first six months, gave us almost no visibility of what was going on with our accounts,” she explains. “With Xero, it’s so transparent — it allows me to keep track of absolutely everything in the business.” Ade says that her favourite thing about Xero is that she can invoice customers directly. “You have the history of every retailer client and every client, and it works so well for our accountant, too.” L Find out how Xero can help your business at xero.com

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Lessons in Leaning Out Emily Fischer of Brooklyn-based creative studio Haptic Lab argues against Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’ notion of work ethic, which professes to empower women in the workplace. A former architect and self-confessed work addict, Emily now takes an entirely different approach to her working life, realising that working all hours isn’t necessary to maximise productivity.

WORDS Emily Fischer PHOTOGRAPHS Michael Cooper

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or most creatives, the desire to have unstructured time to explore ideas comes naturally. It’s as necessary as food, as sleep. We don’t work for work’s sake. But when I founded Haptic Lab,1 I’d just left the proverbial salt mines of the architecture profession; I had a cult-like devotion to work itself, a philosophy owed almost entirely to the competitive Roarkian 2 underpinnings of that environment. As a woman, I felt I had a lot to prove as an architect and then as a design entrepreneur. I felt I had to be working all the time.

For Haptic Lab to thrive, I needed to find a proper rhythm and focus on my craft. I had to learn to trust my own voice and value my ideas; most importantly, I had to learn to chill out. Anxiety still lingers, but I work more freely. My advice to other design entrepreneurs, especially other women: don’t bother ‘leaning in’. Instead, create the psychic space for yourself that you want to work in.

The biggest mistake I made starting out was undervaluing my work. One of my first projects was a massive silk quilt of Rome that took over 150 hours

to complete. I sold that project for $600, and the cost of materials was about a third of that sum. I’ll spare you the math equation, but that meant I had to work 12-hour days, seven days a week just to live in New York. These early miscalculations were in part because I feared no one would buy my designs, but also because it fed into my addiction to work.

How do you value what you sell? I started by researching my industry, or an approximation of that industry, and figured out what sort of profit margins Haptic Lab should have — not an actual dollar amount, but a percentage of what the company should earn after all the bills are paid. I’m still learning how to do this properly. I just learned what the ‘bottom line’ actually means on a profit / loss statement, and I also learned that I still run my design company’s financials like a restaurant. Business isn’t always about money, but it’s important to make enough money.

Setting healthy work habits was a bit harder for me to manage than company finances. I always, always worked late. This was programmed to my core; a boss once cheerily told me a hot shower was worth four

1. hapticlab.com 2. Howard Roark is a fictional character — an ambitious architect — in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead.

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hours of sleep. While working a corporate job in my twenties, I gave the side-eye to older female colleagues who left the office at 5pm, women who had to pick up their children from daycare and focus on their lives as mothers. This is all deeply embarrassing to me now. As a new mom myself, I understand that better work is accomplished in a focused eight-hour workday and that a hot shower is not the same thing as four hours of sleep. A good night’s sleep, a solid breakfast, and a life outside the office really can lead to exciting, out-of-the-box solutions to difficult problems! I now set small, achievable goals for myself and my team once a week with an eye towards longerterm goals.

An adage of ‘leaning in’ is that we shouldn’t draw a distinction between our work selves and selves outside of work; we should just be available to everyone all the time, ready to lead. This ubiquity is making us all crazy and somehow less present. What helped me was to separate my identity from that of Haptic Lab; or, rather, to say that I am no longer myself and my business simultaneously. I have two Instagram

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accounts, one for myself and one for my studio. I have two emails, one for myself and one for my work. I get mad at employees who linger a little too long on a task at the end of the day. I am no longer ubiquitous, and they shouldn’t be either.

I like not working all the time. Not long ago, I had the opportunity to expand Haptic Lab into a massive space twice the size of our current studio, with a long-term lease, in a brand-new building partly subsidised by the city. It was the unicorn of New York studio spaces. After much hand-wringing, I decided the expansion wasn’t worth it. More space just meant more: more costs, more people, more product, more profit, more work. This decision was a real watershed moment in the life of my company and an affirmation of what Haptic Lab is all about in the first place: a small company focused on doing great work instead of growing big. My team and I truly love the pace and current focus of our design practice. Most of all, I love being able to spend half my week with my little daughter. L

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Business isn’t always about money, but it’s important to make enough money.

Emily Fischer

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Seeds of Change Coupling science and the arts harmoniously, Julien Antih and Alexandra (Sash) Strelcova founded Haenke — a space combining botanical lab, education platform, arts space, and concept store into one. With the simple goal of connecting people and plants, they discuss the many challenges they face when imparting complicated information to the public.

WORDS Samantha Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS Teodorik Mensl

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ut together a pharmacist and a creative, and imagine what kind of business they could run together — you might be hard-pressed to think of something. There aren’t many industries or disciplines where the sciences and the arts can naturally intertwine without clashing, but with Haenke, it seems like the perfect combination.

Founded by Julien, a pharmacist, and Sash, a creative, Haenke sits as something of a mediator between two different fields, with the goals of connecting the public with the world of scientific domains studying the use of plants, and imparting knowledge of how plants can benefit people’s lives — be that via art, design, fashion, or medicine.

It sounds like a simple idea, but as I learned from chatting to Julien and Sash, the means of fulfilling it are anything but.

During his time studying at the UCL School of Pharmacy, Julien became aware that the public lacked scientifically proven resources about the use of plants.

He wanted to remedy this, so together with Sash — a graduate of Goldsmiths College with background in creative entrepreneurship — they set up an initiative that sought to solve this problem, reaching out to people by way of arts installations, engaging with the creative community through events and collaborations, and running seminars and workshops focusing on how people can cure themselves using plants. All this from one humble space near the centre of Prague.

If this wasn’t enough, the space also functions as a concept store, lending itself as a showroom for young Czech design brands such as Aman Original (who provided all of the space’s furniture and shelves), and provides an occasional venue for Prague’s creative community to mingle and convene via ‘Haenke Lates’.

This monthly event hosts DJs and music, and offers late-night shopping at the store.

It sounds like a pretty comprehensive means of communicating their message about plants and plant benefits to an engaged audience, but the nature of the subject means that conveying just the right amount of information, in the right medium, can be a challenge. “We launched a series of workshops last spring,” explains Sash, “and realised that even though people asked about it and came to make their own plant-based products, they weren’t ready for the level of information we wanted to give them. So we tried to find the right balance of science and interactivity. But after

Left & opposite, top: photos by Jakub Nedbal

experimenting with this approach, we decided to take a fresh approach. Now we host two-hour-long sessions called ‘phytolabs’, in which participants create their own plant-based products and are, of course, given essential information regarding ingredients, benefits, and risks associated with medicinal plants, as well as hygiene, and how to properly stock the products.”

But more pressing than conveying the right balance of information in an age where the use plants for cosmetic and medicinal purposes is growing in popularity, is that people get the right information.

Alongside growing trends in this area is an increased wealth of information available online. But this information has varying degrees of accuracy, giving diluted and confusing messages, sometimes with dangerous consequences.

“It’s always good to have people interested in the subject,” explains Julien, “but there are some cases where people have actually been poisoned because of inaccurate or incorrect information. There’s a lot of ridiculous information related to the use of medicinal plants circulating online, leading to, for instance, the entire anti-vaccination movement, and articles that support substituting modern medicine for plants.

Although modern medicine is indeed based on plants and the active substances that plants include, it’s impossible to cure today’s diseases with plants alone.”

Although the workshops make up a large part of Haenke’s mission of communicating with people, Julien and Sash also see public art installations as a vital means of reaching a much wider audience.

Creative installations have included a large-scale ‘maze’ of plants at the National Theatre Square in Prague, to a more recent collaboration with the Czech Centre London. “Rather than teaching people,” says Julien, “we try to let people discover more about plants by themselves.”

Since the majority of their work takes place in Prague, I was curious to know whether the city lent itself well to such a niche concept. “Something really important started to happen here about six years ago,” explains Sash. “Even though Prague wasn’t really affected by the financial crisis, there was plenty of unrealised creative potential in young people that form the community here. Suddenly, they started to set up their own businesses and realise their own ideas, establishing small studios and creative projects of all sorts from fashion design to coffee shops.”

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Prague’s creative community, Sash enthuses, has continued to evolve since then, with areas such as Krymská Street or Letná and Žižkov districts, now full of speciality coffee shops, creative studios, and boutique restaurants. From those small streets and independent clusters, Prague’s creative community started to grow, of which Haenke is an active part.

“This scene is one of the reasons we thought it might not be such a bad idea to start-up here,” she says.

“But we think the message behind Haenke could be appealing both to the local public as well as the international community. Although there are loads of projects focused on plants, none of them are focused on creating a connection between science and the arts.”

The benefits of connecting with the public in this way are twofold for Sash and Julien: as well as enabling them to be an active part of Prague’s young, creative scene, it perhaps more importantly gives them the opportunity to increase awareness of ethnobotany and phytotherapy among an engaged audience. And with events planned across Prague in the coming year that collaborate with people across the fields of art, including music, fashion, and architecture — they are set to take the discipline of ethnobotany into the 21st century, making it fun, interesting, engaging, and, most of all, open. L Visit Hænke Botanical Lab at Chvalova 12, Prague 3 – Žižkov 130 0, Czech Republic, or online at haenke.cz

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There are some cases where people have actually been poisoned because of inaccurate or incorrect information they’ve received from reading blogs or attending workshops run by people with no professional training.

Sash Strelcova

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× We’ve partnered with Reform to showcase their beautiful fronts and countertops, which attach to IKEA units to make designer kitchens affordable. In this exclusive feature, we discover what motivates founders Michael Andersen and Jeppe Christensen.

WORDS Elliot Jay Stocks PHOTOGRAPHS courtesy of Reform

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ecognising that most design-conscious home owners are usually priced out of owning a designer kitchen, Copenhagenbased friends Jeppe Christensen and Michael Andersen founded Reform in 2014 to utilise the ubiquity of IKEA furniture as a starting point for their kitchens. Taking IKEA components as the basic ingredient, Reform offers architectdesigned fronts and countertops to elevate kitchens to a whole new level. “I don’t think you can get a better-quality kitchen, at that price in the market, than IKEA,� says Jeppe, who was a partner in a carpentry and design business

before approaching Michael with the idea for Reform. “It means we didn’t have to invent a new kitchen system — the cabinets, the type of drawers, all of that. They’ve come up with a system that just works. It’s functional, it’s accessible, and you can get it anywhere in the world.”

And so, the process of getting a Reform kitchen is incredibly straightforward. First, you order the kitchen from your local IKEA, then you order your preferred fronts and countertops from Reform — who deliver worldwide — and then everything clicks together once the base of the kitchen is assembled.

This concept has been a huge success. In just four years, Reform has expanded beyond its native Denmark to open showrooms in Berlin and New York, and the brand has collaborated with designers the founders refer to as ‘some of the world’s best’. Reform also now offers its own components for customers who want something more bespoke than IKEA’s offerings.

Asked what challenges Reform has faced since its inception, Michael — who, prior to co-founding the company, worked as an engineer at Bjarke Ingels’ highly regarded architectural firm BIG — says that all challenges have been related to success. “We’ve been lucky to have great feedback from the very beginning,” he explains. “So, maybe we suddenly can’t produce enough orders in time, or we have to hire more people, but all of our challenges have been positive, and come from us growing.” Jeppe adds that with growth, it can be hard to maintain a company culture. “But that really is so

important to us,” he says. “We want people to love showing up for work every day.”

Reform’s plans for the immediate future are to steadily release new options, as well as one that aims to be fully upcycled. “The designers we approach,” Michael explains, “don’t like to design things for the über-rich, who no one can relate to. They’re excited by the idea that they can design something that ‘normal’ people can buy.” And while Jeppe admits that trends are always on the move, he sees the appeal of minimal Scandinavian aesthetics as being “the perfect balance between the function and the visual expression of design”. L

We want people to love showing up for work every day.

Jeppe Christensen

Visit Reform online at reformcph.com, follow on Instagram as @reformcph, and like Reform on Facebook.

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New Heights Lorcan Quinn of apron-makers Enrich & Endure focuses his working life on reviving the local linen industry. But away from work, he focuses on finding the next secure handhold on the seemingly sheer rock faces that intersperse the rugged and dramatic coastal landscapes of Northern Ireland, and beyond.

WORDS Lorcan Quinn PHOTOGRAPHS Simon Mills

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or me, the outdoors is not just something I enjoy — it’s an essential part of my life, offering me an escape from the everyday. I’m never happier than when I’m fully immersed in it.

The two sports that enable me to do this are climbing and fell-running, and when I’m not in the Enrich & Endure 1 office, you’ll either find me running up the Mourne Mountains, or climbing in Fair Head.

But, if I had to pick a favourite, it’d be the latter.

Fair Head — on Northern Ireland’s north-easterly tip — offers endless routes, and the quality of climbing is exceptional. But best of all, the views are stunning.

And that’s part of the beauty of climbing: it takes you to magical places that are quiet and off the beaten track. Although these places can be challenging to get to, the peace and solitude you find there is the greatest reward of all.

Most Irish climbing locations have no phone reception, which is an absolute blessing. It’s a great way for me to reconnect with nature and switch off — literally as well as figuratively. Because of this, I’ve developed an even greater appreciation for life’s simple pleasures. There’s something very rewarding about the sheer simplicity of testing myself against gravity, and pushing the limits of my body. It offers me a great way to clear my head, requiring me to be fully focused on what I’m doing in that moment in time, or I risk a fall. Although it’s an intense workout for the body and the mind, it can be a relaxing and almost meditative experience. In my eyes, it’s the best kind of therapy.

1. enrichandendure.com

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It might be surprising to learn that as a climber, I have an inherent fear of heights. But because of this, I’m constantly challenged to overcome my fear — something I find very empowering. This ‘mind control’ has been a very useful way of making me realise that most fears can be overcome simply with breath, hard work, and patience. Although I’ve always had an interest in climbing, I only started four years ago after I was introduced to the sport by my cousin who shares the same sense of adventure for extreme sports as I do. From my very first visit to the bouldering wall in Belfast, I was hooked.

Ireland has a small but fantastic climbing community, of which I’ve become a part, and I’ve found

those involved hugely supportive from day one. People go out of their way to help you develop your skills and involve you in the sport, and I’ve met some incredible people who’ve inspired and encouraged me throughout

my climbing journey. Although we’re all at different levels, everyone is equal in a sense: we’re all there to reap the benefits of climbing. Over the last few years, I’ve introduced my sister and business partner Sarah

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to the wonders of the climbing world. Sharing the same interests outside of work helps to create a seamless transition from office to the outdoors, and now we frequently climb together.

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Staying fuelled and hydrated is very important when climbing. Sarah and I have always been into eating healthily, making sure we’re putting the right fuel into our ‘engines’ — something that’s even more

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important when climbing, as it can quickly sap your resources. When going on a climbing trip, we always start the day with a big, wholesome bowl of porridge, and prepare plenty of nutritious snacks to take with us. Some of our favourites are pretty simple, including avocado on rice cakes, peanut butter on sourdough bread, bananas, and apples. Lunch generally consists of a flask of homemade soup, or a large salad composed of the previous night’s leftovers.

Climbing has taken me to some incredible places in Europe over the last few years, with most recent trips to Siurana and Chulilla in Spain. These two

climbing havens were incredible — places I would never have heard of or even considered visiting if it weren’t for my love of climbing. I’m now constantly looking for new places to climb that will be more challenging, and even more remote.

Each time I climb, I learn something new, and can feel myself continually improving. It’s a hugely rewarding pastime, and I’m always reminded to dig deeper to find out what the human body is really capable of. L

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Surfing LA Photographer Caleb Thal uses surfing as a way to creatively recharge and escape city life. Here, he jumps in a van with some friends and shares some of his favourite spots for surfers up the Pacific Coast around Los Angeles.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS Caleb Thal

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he key to surfing in Los Angeles is crowd control. Surfers here choose different spots based not only on wave styles, but also the amount of people that will be around them. Some love the crowds and are happy to be surrounded by a hundred other people in the water, while others seek seclusion, preferring to be out with only a few folks. My weekend trip up the coast from LA to Santa Barbara took in a mixture of both.

➊ Salt Surf I always head to this shop in Culver City (in the centre of LA) to gear up before a trip. Selling clothing and accessories, fins and boards, this isn’t your classic surf shop. In addition to carrying a hand-selected array of quality surf goods, they make many of the products they sell in their LA workshop. I picked up a few shirts and some beanies for the expectedly cold morning at camp. saltsurf.com 8840 Washington Boulevard, Suite 103, Culver City

Opposite: Map created using the Mapbox API. Map data © OpenStreetMap. Please note that locations are approximate.

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➋ Bear Coast Coffee One of the best things about this coffee shop is that it opens at 6am, so you can stop in before the sun is even up. Located right at the San Clemente Pier, it’s surrounded by surf, and only a few miles away from some of the best surfing spots in Southern California. Here, we had some coffee and pastries (I had a pie for breakfast — it’s vacation) and jumped back in the truck to head to our first destination. bearcoastcoffee.com 618 1/2 Avenida Victoria, San Clemente

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➌ Old Man’s Old Man’s got its name from a slow wave, where there tends to be a healthy number of barrel-chested old guys crushing it. Don’t let the name fool you, though — some of the most fun I’ve had while surfing has been at Old Man’s. Located in San Onofre State Park, next to Church and Lower Trestles — its more high-performance cousins — Old Man’s tends to be more beginner-friendly; you can get great slow rollers and a lot of space to manoeuvre up and down the wave. It has an easy, accessible car park and a friendly atmosphere. Since we had our gear, we set up the stove and made coffee. parks.ca.gov/sanonfre San Onofre State Beach, Old Highway 101, San Clemente

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� Malibu Surfrider Beach After spending the morning at San Onofre, we zipped up the coast about an hour and a half to Malibu. This beach is made for surfers and it’s a scene in itself, so get ready to soak it all up! When paddling out, you can choose from points one, two, or three. Point one is best for longboarders, and points two and three are good for both longboarders and more fun shapes.

We were exhausted from the morning, so stopped to watch some people noseride before continuing to head up the coast.

23050 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu

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➎ Staircase About 20 minutes north of Surfrider Beach, look for a small mailbox that says ‘40000’, then pull into the tiny parking area that looks like someone’s driveway.

Grab your boards and walk down the winding path that leads you onto a secluded beach. It has both a right and a left wave, and is a beautiful place to just hang out. In fact, this is my favourite spot in all of LA. When we arrived, there was a heavy fog and everyone else had left, leaving us completely alone with the waves for over two hours.

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➏ Leo Carrillo State Park Campground This is an easy place to stay the night if you’re into camping, and that’s what we did. It’s pretty basic, and like many other places in Southern California, it’s crowded and not secluded. But its saving grace is that it’s only about five minutes from Staircase, so I think that makes it worth it. If it’s full, head up a few more miles towards Sycamore Canyon Campground. parks.ca.gov/leocarrillo 35000 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu

➐ C-Street Ventura This is yet another classic California surf spot. Pull into the car park and wait 20 minutes until a spot finally opens up. The lot overlooks the beach, and offers an easy walk down to the water. There are many different points at C-Street, so the name of the game is finding your spot and staying out of people’s way.

Almost all of the waves are rights, so if you keep that in mind, you’ll be okay and probably catch one of the longer rides of your surfing career (I did).

Surfer’s Point at Seaside Park, Ventura

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➑ Emma Wood State Beach Another beautiful surf spot just outside Ventura, Emma Wood is where you’ll find more aggressive waves catering to shortboards. This was our last spot of the day, and although we were pretty exhausted, we had a great time, jealously watching folks hit aerials and groms get barrelled.

Pacific Coast Highway, Ventura

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➒ La Super-Rica Taqueria After two full days of surfing and eating camp / road food, this is the best place finish off the trip. Located in Santa Barbara and known for being the home of Julia Child’s 1 favourite tacos in the US, it’s the perfect end to a perfect weekend. Unfortunately for us, we pulled up to read a handwritten ‘on vacation’ note in the window. That won’t stop me from recommending it for you, though, as well as planning another surf trip just to get my hands on those tacos again. L 622 N Milpas Street, Santa Barbara

1. American chef, author, and TV personality

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P A R T N E R F E AT U R E

× We’ve partnered with KeepCup to share the stories of everyday changemakers who are committed to leaving the world better than they found it — because what better way to have a conversation than over a cup of coffee?

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS Elliot Jay Stocks

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meet Ellis Williams at Little Victories — one of Bristol’s best speciality coffee shops, and the second venture from the team behind Small Street Espresso in the Old City — where he shows me a jar of coconut oil. The label reads ‘Bula Batiki’; bula is a Fijian greeting, meaning to wish someone good health; Batiki is the island where this oil is produced. It’s a perfect name, therefore, for the company 1 he co-runs that returns 100% of its profits to the oil producers on the island.

Inspired by repeated visits to the remote island of Batiki, during which Ellis and his cofounder, Callum Drummond, got involved in various local community projects, they’ve enjoyed a gentle, methodical period of growth since the company’s inception in 2014. Incredibly, Bula Batiki is now the sole source of income for the islanders. It’s an impressive feat, considering it’s one of three careers Ellis balances — his other two jobs are in beer and screenwriting — but his

1. bulabatiki.co.uk

motivation is to “give back to the community that took us in and treated us like sons”.

Enamoured with the people of Batiki, their open and caring nature, and staunchly traditional way of life, Ellis has harnessed the popularity of coconut oil to create a truly sustainable business, and the appeal is growing thanks to the increased interest in living a more environmentally aware lifestyle. “It’s not just businesses like ours,” he says. “Just sorting the recycling makes a difference, and it’s something I’ve tried to push for in my bar work.”

We stroll along Bristol’s new Wapping Wharf development, full of local businesses using the affordable shipping container units to sell their wares — many of them operating within the food and beverage industry. Ellis is here to deliver Bula Batiki jars to one of his stockists, but the company’s steady growth means that they’re now sending the product far and wide. “As well as expanding our stockists in the UK,” Ellis says, “we’re currently in the process of getting Batiki Island certified as organic, making it only the second island in Fiji to be certified out of 330 islands.” L KeepCup is for the everyday changemakers.

Be part of the change. Visit keepcup.com

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La Chola Dasso, Lima We travel to Lima to find a passion for baking from Peruvian chef Jonathan Day. And, to allow us to recreate the atmosphere of his café at home — at least in part — he shares the recipe for his delicious frangipane tart.

WORDS Shaun Pett PHOTOGRAPHS Leila Ashtari

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hen Jonathan Day returned to his home of Lima after living in London for five years, he missed two things: bread and beer. As Peru has no established bread culture, Jonathan went about baking it himself, learning from books, and trial and error. Wanting to share his love of bread with his countrymen, six years ago, he opened the bakery-café El Pan de la Chola in a former automotive garage.

After conquering bread, it was only logical to then move on to beer. Seeing the potential to make a local bar in an area that lacked one, and that offered visitors something a little different to their average watering hole, Jonathan opened his new place in Lima’s wellheeled San Isidro District. “I wanted to have a beer in a place that is beautiful, casual, and has some interesting stuff to eat,” he explains. Thus, La Chola Dasso was born in July 2017.

With its sleek minimalist design, high ceilings, concrete walls, reclaimed wood tables, and marble counters, La Chola Dasso feels well-placed amidst the upscale shopping, office towers, and leafy residential

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streets, offering a laid-back refuge amongst commercial bustle. A multi-generational crowd of residents, workers, and tourists pop in for a perfect coffee and pastry, linger over a salad and sandwich or, at night, enjoy a cheese plate with a pint, sometimes accompanied by a live DJ set. For beer, there are eight rotating taps from Peruvian microbreweries. It’s one of the only spots in the city where you can get a well-poured pint — like bread, Peru’s beer culture is in its infancy.

“Bread and beer are almost as old as human history,” Jonathan says. “Every single day, I want to eat bread, and every single day, I want a glass of beer.

I think they’re deeply related to humanity.” Believing this, Jonathan has resolved to bring about a revolution — a mission that has proved to be challenging and slow. But Jonathan approaches this with optimism: “The bread rises slow. That’s the great thing about bread: it teaches us that we can’t rush it.”

Here, he shares his recipe for pear frangipane tart — a favourite of locals, and a signature dish that makes Jonathan’s pastries stand out in Lima.

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Frangipane Tart Ingredients (makes 12) Tart Cases 85g butter 60g sugar Pinch of salt 1 egg 85g pastry flour 85g whole-wheat flour Frangipane 300g unsalted butter 300g white sugar 4 eggs 300g ground almonds 80g plain flour Tart Filling 12 prebaked tart cases 2 pears 100g fruit jam 600g frangipane

Method 1 For the tartlets, beat the butter, sugar, and salt together. Add the egg and mix, and then softly mix in the flours until incorporated. Place in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

2 Stretch the dough using a rolling pin until approximately 3mm thick. Cut circles of about 10cm in diameter. Place in tart moulds of 6cm diameter and 5cm depth.

3 Preheat the oven to 170째C. Bake covering with baking beans at 170째C for 10 minutes. Remove beans and bake blind for 7 min at 170째C. Let cool and remove from moulds carefully.

4 To make the frangipane cream, beat the butter till soft. Add sugar and keep beating until pale and fluffy.

Incorporate the eggs one by one until well-combined.

Add the flour and almonds and mix softly.

5

Cut the pears into thin slices, about six per tart.

Pour a tiny bit of your favourite fruit jam into the bottom of the tart and fill the rest with the frangipane.

Arrange the pear slices evenly on top of the tarts.

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Preheat the oven to 160째C and bake for 25 minutes.

Let cool and brush the top with orange syrup. L

Visit La Chola Dasso at Miguel Dasso 113, San Isidro, Lima, Peru.

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Naked Truth Julia Giese of Berlin-based naked wine bar and shop JAJA sheds light on the world of natural wine. But can she convince you to be a naked wine convert?

WORDS Julia Giese PHOTOGRAPHS Norman Posselt

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hen you pick up a natural (or ‘naked’) wine, you hold in your hand a bottle of something alive — not dead in the bottle like conventional wines, sapped of their life during the stabilising

and sterilising process. Natural wines express their origin, their terroir, and the story of their life in the purest way possible, with nothing added and nothing crucial taken away.

For a long time, the production of this ancient drink essentially remained the same, and the idea that wine could be anything but natural was unthinkable.

But, for better or worse, the way in which wine is produced and consumed has changed a lot since its discovery, especially in more recent history. Many producers choose quantity over quality, adding synthetic components to the production process in order to ensure a higher yield.

Today, there are a lot of discussions going on around the world about ‘natural’ as opposed to ‘conventional’ wine. The popularity of wine in its most natural form has been gaining ground thanks to grassroots movements that bring back to our modern society the notion that nature is all that we live on, and that we need to embrace it to give future generations a chance to survive. Therefore, the sustainability of natural wines and their minimum impact on the environment is appealing to many consumers who understand this, and, of course, to the growers themselves. But the business of being a natural wine producer is not an easy one. As a wine seller myself, I choose to visit the winemakers to be able to understand what I’m buying from them, and it’s always admirable to see the hard graft of manual work that goes into producing this nectar. Once you’ve seen what it takes to produce the wine, you’ll wonder how such a delicate drop of liquid could be the result of all that brute strength and hard labour.

The production process most often avoids machinery — in some cases, you can even see horses back in the vineyard, ploughing the land. The goal is to remain as close to the plants, and to the land, as possible in order to produce a healthy grape that leads to a vibrant wine, full of flavour. To do so is vital for the grower to understand the life cycle of the vines, the soil that they grow on, and the surrounding landscape with all of its conditions — the terroir.

In keeping with the sustainable production methods is the notion that quality is more important than quantity — something that can still be hard to come by in this day and age, with many non-natural producers, of any product, opting for the opposite. Whereas many conventional vineyards choose not to produce their wines using natural methods to ensure a higher yield and therefore higher profits, the natural winemaking process is slower, with the grapes themselves being hand-selected and yields being lower.

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When the grapes are not treated with chemicals, the fruit alone is expressed in the fermented drink, with the help of nothing else. Although the spirit and history of the grape’s terroir is harnessed, the character of the winemaker, and the possibilities of their cellar can have a significant effect on the drink.

Even with low levels of intervention, variations in movement and temperature can all alter how the end product will taste. Learning how these variations can affect the wine can take decades, with any one of them having the power to ruin the drink along the way, rendering all that time and hard work pointless.

But for those who make the wine, it’s really a labour of love — a passion for the craft. It’s a passion driven by a commitment to producing something respectful of the environment, and a means of reconciling nature and culture.

If you end up in a good wine bar or wine cellar specialising in natural wine, you can clearly recognise the difference between that wine to a conventional one. It’s not about making a living from selling a product — it’s about believing in a product and

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hopefully being able to make a living from it. Natural wine doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not — it’s honest. When you sip from the glass, you’re not just mindlessly drinking for the sake of it — the experience is about sharing information with others, thinking about the wine itself and the environment that produced it, and why it tastes the way it does. All of these things enhance the experience of enjoying the wine.

As well as this, for me personally, wine brings together a lot of different people from around the globe. This fermented nectar has become a universal language without the ambiguity of words, connecting people in many ways, relaxing tongues and breaking ice. In terms of the economy, it connects the seller and the buyer in a personal way, enabling you to talk about emotions and memories of good times, and adding a pleasant, informal element to doing business.

If your interest is piqued and reading this has made you yearn for the tantalising sound of the glou-glou the liquid makes as it’s poured from the bottle into the glass, before finding its way to your lips, my advice to you would be to leave behind all you

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thought you knew about the ‘right’ taste of wine. Open your mind to new experiences and encounters, never losing your curiosity about wine and all that remains to be discovered in the world of natural flavours. L Visit JAJA Berlin at Weichselstraße 7, 12043 Berlin, Germany, or online at jajaberlin.com

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