060 _ _MAR/APR 2019
The Dutch aren’t afraid of colour. For proof of this, consider the vibrant
custom interior of the Commons, a three-level restaurant, bar and event
space that Studio Modijefsky of Amsterdam designed for the Student
Hotel, a stay-work-meet space geared to university kids and tourists,
in Maastricht. The Student Hotel is located inside the Eiffel, a so-called
“horizontal skyscraper” distinguished by its 183-metre-long span.
Formerly the home of the equally celebrated Sphinx ceramics factory,
the setting served as a big source of inspiration for the new 975-square-
metre facility, which is situated in the building’s northeast addition,
constructed out of steel.
The rounded shapes of the hotel’s custom-made tables, for instance,
evoke both spinning pottery wheels and stacked clay vessels; the leather
daybeds are suspended on metal rails in a nod to the elevators that serve
as vertical connectors in the “overturned” monolith. Even the palette,
rendered across the three storeys in both soft pastels and bolder hues,
evokes the colours associated with the making of ceramics, from unbaked
clay to various glazed finishes.
To construct all the custom built-ins, Studio Modijefsky chose to
collaborate with Fiction Factory. Founded in 1989 as a theatre scenery
company, Fiction Factory is a construction studio that also realizes its
own wacky creations, including 2016’s Wikkelhouse, a small-scale house
prototype composed of interlocking cardboard segments. “We know with
which companies we have a mutual understanding, which are the super-
precise ones that are into details and willing to reinvent some wheels,” says
Esther Stam, Studio Modijefsky’s founder. “Fiction Factory is like us – it’s not
an off-the-shelf company. It has electrical, metal, wood and upholstery shops
and they draw everything themselves.” Together, the two firms devised
various types of seating to encourage different ways of using the facility.
Furniture, says Stam, is a good way of defining spaces, while customization
distinguishes a firm from others. studiomodijefsky.nl, fictionfactory.nlThe Best For Built-Ins
BREAKING THE MOULD
For a restaurant housed in a former ceramics plant,
Studio Modijefsky enlisted Holland’s Fiction Factory
to craft dynamic, space-defining seating