Eginstill
Eginstill is a collective of craftsmen working under the creative direction of Frans Pahlplatz, who operates under the hawk’s eye of Yoran Hensel, who focusses on more practical things. If you’ve been to our last Loft, there’s no way you’ve missed the steel, marble and green dream of a kitchen they built for us.
A relatively young company, Eginstill has brought a fresh style to the world of kitchen design. Not that they would say they design kitchens, they’d much rather “make room for all the things you find important in life”. Everybody knows, the best parties are in the kitchen – so why wouldn’t it deserve the same attention as the rest of the house? That’s why every project they undertake is unique and completely made to measure to their client’s needs. It makes for kitchens that make you want to cook grandly while your friends and guests hang around the counters and fridge, refilling your drink, chatting about or trying to tell you how they know best about what you’re trying to dish up.
After you explain to them what you want your dream kitchen and all your cooking soirees to look like, Eginstill take your impossible plan to their workshop. This is where the creative puzzle is pieced together. They work closely with different craftsmen specialising in stone cutting, marble carving and woodworking. These sound exactly as crafty and robust as you could expect the end result to look like.
In an attempt to build kitchens that will outlast a lifetime, they use all natural materials; except marble, wood and steel to be the main components of everything they do. They never use any toxic or chemical components and try to work with durable materials. The wood they use comes from a sustainably managed forest and is processed by a family-owned factory in Finland. But steel is their all-time favourite, as it is extremely durable and recyclable. They manage to make it look warm and subtle, it’s in no way a shiny stainless steel. During last edition of The Loft, the walls of the kitchen were laminated in a black patina steel that was not just charming but also functional. To compliment this steel wall, Eginstill has also developed a magnetic shelve that is strong enough to support plants, glasses and even bottles of whiskey. The neatest solution ever for a modular kitchen system – no ugly drilling holes needed if you decide you want to re-arrange the whole layout of your pantry space.
From the beginning of your plan to the end, Eginstill takes into account your personality and surroundings. This has led them to projects that have taken over more space than they initially expected. Lofty canal spaces, chalets in the Alps or the whole interior of a villa in Landsmeer, where their love for steel and oak branched out of the kitchen and into the living room. The challenge there turned out to be building an open steel chimney that would be reach all the way through the roof. For Eginstill, just building kitchens is just not quite the challenge.
