The new Fritz Hansen Lounge in Dimensione shows how colors can influence your heartbeat
Who wants 50 shades of beige when you can have yellow, rose, and blue? “Colors influence your mood, your blood circulation and heartbeat,” Fritz Hansen Asia CEO Dario Reicherl states — a scientifically proven fact.
While the beiges of the world all have their place as a visual relaxant to the incessant stimulus of urban living, two years of being cooped up with our feelings taught us that there is more than one kind of stress and exhaustion — just as there is more than one kind of joy, relaxation, and bliss.
In the reopened Fritz Hansen Lounge in Studio Dimensione, we are urged to try at least six of these moods in Jaime Hayon-designed rooms, its features unique to no other Fritz Hansen Lounge or House of Fritz Hansen in the world.
A reaction to the “dopamine decorating” trend? Instead of going up, up, up, the space takes you through your moods.
“Spend an hour here and it will either calm you down or energize you,” Reicherl says.
Of course, what calms us or energizes us in a space varies across cultural constraints and context. For instance, a stark white wall and dark oak floor with the spotlight on one chair in a small room might resonate as a theatrical depiction of calmness in solitude to the Japanese — this is one presentation in the Tokyo lounge. A family-oriented culture like ours might perceive it differently.
“Each country I go to, I switch myself into local mode,” Reicherl explains. “When I’m here in Manila, I become Filipino and it’s easy because I’m from Sicily; it’s pretty easy for me to understand this type of vibe.”
“I‘m a wanderlust, so home for me is not just a four-walled arrangement of beautiful things but can be any place for feeling—of comfort from careful and good design, of sentimental memories from pieces old and new, of love and laughter surrounded by family,” says Suyen Corp.‘s Ben Chan.
In Manila, Reicherl observed the Filipino’s will to think positively and gather through the good times and the bad. “I decided to do a fiesta and take some risks. It’s all about Filipino gatherings, which are not a group of five but always a group of 15 to 30.”
There are no small rooms in the Manila lounge.
There is also an occasion to fiesta: Fritz Hansen turns 150 this year.
“This is the boldest and most colorful Fritz Hansen lounge anywhere in the world. You can only do this in the Philippines.”
His favorite is the middle room, with its warmer, rose color scheme. “When people go into the room, they feel like they’re being cuddled by their parents, which is why I chose to do this as the work room. When you’re working at the desk, you need to relax from all the problems of your job.”
With the ergonomic Giraffe chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1959 and the right height of the PK5 worktable by Poul Kjærholm, there is little else to distract you from a productive workday.
Playing with the way light influences our mood, Reicherl did away with direct lighting in the desk, installing them on the shelving. Inspired by the golden hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., “Your eyes automatically relax because the sun is low.”
It’s also why the receiving room is the brightest, letting in as much natural light as possible with a palette of gray, green, and blue, combining multiple lamps, and why the rooms get dimmer inside the lounge with combinations of lamps in different heights.
“After work, you move to the blue room. You play music, have some whiskey, get in the mood, get cozy,” he says. The Hayon art piece, cut and moved from the original showroom, anchors the high-ceilinged gathering room. “This color calms you down but in a way that makes you want to party and celebrate.”
Then you move to another dining area, a yellow room, “To make you feel more awake. Amber, orange, yellow — those colors wake people up.”
Each room is separated by curved doors designed by Hayon especially for Manila. (If they call to mind the statement doorways of the trendsetting The Standard Bangkok, it’s because they were designed within the same time frame.) Fritz Hansen lounges are created to gather local design professionals and enthusiasts in its locations since Reicherl conceptualized it in the style of an airport lounge and resort in Taipei; in Manila, the doors can be opened or closed to divide or combine the rooms for a range of functions.
Colors, lights, and divisions are just some of the ways you can enhance your mood through your space.
“Your home should always be a manifestation of your values, your taste, but also your personality. If you’re a very calm person, shy, or an introvert, you will have blue; it’s important to create a space where you can be yourself. If you are an extrovert, you need a larger space with a big table for bringing people together,” he says. “It is the second most important thing in your life after your family, I would say. It is your cave. Your temple. Happy home, happy life.”
* * *
The newly renovated Fritz Hansen Manila lounge is at Studio Dimensione, G/F One Parkade, 28th Street corner 7th Avenue, BGC.
