2 July 2024
Norwegian design studio Ask og Eng creates sustainable kitchens and furniture from bamboo. They started by making fronts for an IKEA kitchen, but now they also make custom kitchens, cabinets, and furniture. Recently, they opened Ask og Eng House, a guesthouse for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in their minimalist world for a few nights. They also open the doors to everyone on the first Saturday of the month.
The guesthouse is located in Drammen, an industrial city by a river, nestled between mountains and forests. It’s about a 30-minute train ride from Oslo. The house, where founders Kine Ask Stenersen and Kristoffer Eng lived with their children until they emigrated to Mallorca, is a typical Norwegian house where the front door is not at street level, but reached via steps and a veranda with a bench. This is because a thick layer of snow can fall in winter.
Once inside, you immediately notice the recognizable Ask og Eng kitchen in a Rye finish on the right. Like many successful companies, an idea often starts with something the entrepreneur misses in their own life. Kristoffer Eng, working as an architect, encountered bamboo for a project and was impressed by its high quality and sustainability. Together with his wife Kine Ask Stenersen, an environmental geographer committed to a sustainable world for years, they saw that bamboo grows much faster, is climate-neutral, involves no toxic substances during its growth process, and they just happened to need a new kitchen. Thus, the first kitchen quickly became a reality.
The first kitchens (The Collection A) have a beautiful design, built around the already proven successful IKEA kitchen cabinet system. But soon, their customers wanted custom-made drawers, storage compartments, and other types of furniture, so they expanded their collection with cabinets, as well as benches, side tables, and even cutting boards. Everything comes together in the Ask og Eng House, where you can open all the drawers and test the products.
The house naturally has a dream kitchen with a small pantry containing a double fridge and a coffee corner. You can have breakfast at the round table, although having a cup of coffee in the sun on the veranda is also a great way to start the day. The living room exudes tranquility, and the office on the other side of the stairs invites you to admire various wood and stone samples. Upstairs, you’ll find two bedrooms, a spacious lounge with a TV corner, and a bathroom with a tub and Le Labo shampoo and hand wash.
The beauty of staying or visiting Ask og Eng House is the invitation to think about how and where you store your belongings. In this house, you won’t see any stray push pins, as there’s a drawer for everything, including oven trays, cleaning supplies, your eyeliner, mascara, and blush brush, or a set of watches or belts. Before ordering a kitchen, or a custom-made cabinet for instance, lay out on the floor what you actually use and how you want to store it. It’s a waste if you order a large wall cabinet but half of the cabinets remain empty. The same goes for living in a small space.
And if you stay in Drammen, what else can you do in the area? Besides visiting Oslo, a 30-minute train ride away, you can hike up the mountain in Drammen for a panoramic view and some deer-spotting. Norway is the country with the longest tunnel in the world, and while you won’t go through a 20+ kilometer tunnel in Drammen, they have a unique phenomenon called the Spiraltunnel. A tunnel just under 2 kilometers that spirals upwards via 6 loops. And there you can expect a beautiful view.
Check out: www.askogeng.com
Amtmand Breders gate 1, 3045 Drammen, Norway
