IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID THULSTRUP

Open Journal (OJ): You worked with both Jean Nouvel and Peter Marino early in your career, two architects with distinctly different philosophies. Was there a moment in your own practice where you felt the opposing influences of these contrasting mentors colliding, and how did you resolve that tension to find your own voice?

David Thulstrup (DT): I was fortunate to spend formative years with two very strong architect studios with incredibly talented and intelligent founders. When I arrived as a young student and later employee, I would say I arrived with curiosity to learn and explore, ready to develop my own voice. They are very different, I think all studios are. You have to differentiate in a market, and you also have different interests. But they share something important: ambition and discipline. The scales they work in are big, the expectations are high, and the standard is non-negotiable. You learn what it means to deliver the ''better-than-best'' to your clients, and you learn how far you can push an idea without losing control of it. It wasn't through a tension that I founded my own studio – it was a will to explore and being curious about how I could contribute.

OJ: You founded your namesake studio in 2009, right as the financial crisis was still unfolding. What made that the right moment to step out on your own rather than wait for stability? Looking back, did that timing shape your practice in ways you didn't anticipate?

DT: There is never a perfect moment. If you wait for stability, you can wait forever. I mean this with the best intentions for anyone reading, and I am not saying it is easy – it requires resilience, and one has to be ready to be challenged, emotionally and economically. I remember the financial crisis clearly, but people still wanted to build and create something meaningful. And honestly, starting a studio teaches you to be pragmatic very fast. You learn to make careful choices, to be precise and to protect the quality of the work you do. The timing taught me to be resourceful and intentional from the very beginning.

OJ: Restaurants are inherently ephemeral spaces. They can close, rebrand, or transform within a few years. When you designed Noma, arguably one of the most influential restaurants in the world, how did this tension between cultural permanence and physical impermanence affect your approach? Do you design differently, knowing a space might not last?

DT: I actually see it differently. The best restaurants are designed to endure. The people behind them are building a life's work. They are creating a legacy. Of course, restaurants can change, and the industry is intense. But that is precisely why we should design with integrity and permanence in mind. If anything, a restaurant deserves more care because it holds so much human effort every single day. With Noma, "home" and "legacy" were central. René [Redzepi] wanted people to arrive and immediately feel safe and grounded, almost as if you could take your shoes off. We worked with natural materials that have depth and that age gracefully. Materials that do not look finished on day one but become more beautiful through use. If you build it honestly, it can hold decades of memories.

OJ: At Noma, diners move through a tasting menu that unfolds over hours, with courses arriving in a carefully orchestrated sequence. How did you approach the architecture as a temporal experience rather than a static backdrop? Did you and René Redzepi discuss how the space should evolve or reveal itself as the meal progresses?

DT: A restaurant is time-based by nature. The restaurants I design invite you to sit for a longer time. You do not just enter and leave. You settle in, and you move, and you notice more as the hours pass. So the architecture cannot be a single image. It has to unfold. Simple, monochromatic walls work for some contexts, but I prefer to layer textures and materials because it feels much more grounded and gives the eye places to wander. For me, that becomes a question of rhythm: how you arrive, how you are welcomed, how the room holds you, how the transitions feel, how acoustics and light change your sense of intimacy. And it is also a question of flow behind the scenes, because the staff experience shapes the guest experience, even if you never see it directly. We did talk about this with René, what the first minutes should feel like, how calm we can make the room, where people naturally pause, and where they feel looked after. If you get that right, the meal becomes part of the architecture.

OJ: You're inevitably positioned within the Scandinavian design tradition, but that label can flatten into clichés about minimalism and pale wood. What aspects of Danish or Scandinavian culture genuinely inform your work in ways that might not be immediately visible? What do you actively resist about that categorisation?

DT: I understand why people place me in a Scandinavian tradition, and I'm proud of that heritage, though I'm interested in exploring beyond the cliché version of it. Pale and beige wood became a recognisable style. But for me, what's meaningful is the deeper cultural respect for simplicity and for well-made things. Not simple as in "empty" or without soul, but simple as in grounded and honest. When something is reduced to what it truly is, you can feel the clarity of it. I'm more interested in designing for place than in adhering to a single aesthetic. A project in Copenhagen should not feel like a project in New York or in the countryside. The materials and the atmosphere have to speak the local language, otherwise it becomes decoration.

OJ: You maintain a 12-ton material library in your studio. Can you walk me through a specific project in which a material you discovered, perhaps unusual or unexpected, fundamentally redirected your design concept? What was it about that material that demanded the project go in a different direction?

DT: The material library is an essential working tool and very concrete. We use it to test ideas with our hands, so the design process is tactile, not only visual. Many projects evolve when you find a material with a very specific character, something that immediately tells you how it wants to be used. Sometimes it is a stone with an unusual grain, sometimes it is a wood with a warmth that makes you lower the contrast in the whole palette.

OJ: You've said your work focuses on the well-being and emotions of inhabitants. Can you describe a specific material decision where you prioritised emotional resonance over aesthetic perfection? What did you choose, and what feeling were you trying to evoke?

DT: I trust natural materials for exactly this reason. Wood, stone, iron, glass—materials that can age gracefully and that embrace their history rather than trying to appear perpetually new. There is something deeply human about seeing time in a surface, and when that is combined with place and built environment, it is so beautiful because it becomes a memory and a sense of that place, like entering a historic place or encountering a sculpture that has weathered outdoors. The small marks, the softening of an edge, the patina. At Noma, it was very much an orchestra of natural materials. And when I visit now, close to ten years later, the wear reads as character, as belonging. You feel immediately that the place has been lived in, cared for, and used with intensity.

You can find out more about David Thulstrup on his website or Instagram. Interview by Tiffany Jade. Photography by Irina Boersma César Machado.