Denizen House

Berlin-based hospitality start-up Denizen opens the first Denizen House in Kreuzberg as a community space for work and leisure, translating contemporary hospitality into architecture with an open layout and a concierge service.

At the beginning of this year, Denizen’s first House opened its doors in Berlin, offering local residents as well as companies services and leisure activities tailored to their professional daytime needs.

Conceived as a lobby for the neighbourhood, it offers Denizens – locals and regulars alike – a place away from the home or office, with an open lounge, a concierge, a grab-and-go café, flexible workspace and a self-care studio with showers and changing facilities. Evening events and classes, such as meet- ups, food tastings, yoga, meditation and fitness classes round off the comprehensive offering.

Denizen House is an inclusive open venue, which can be accessed Monday to Friday by the day or on a monthly subscription basis.

Designed by Modiste Studio, Denizen House spans the ground floor on the site of the historic Eiswerk in Kreuzberg. Floor-to-ceiling windows across the entire front facing Köpenicker Straße flood the spacious reception with light. The pared-down shell of the new building with screed floor, pipes and cable trays on the ceiling is cleverly supplemented with fixtures such as partitions, shelves and countertops.

The furniture – both custom made and via Denizen’s collaboration partner Vitra – is geared towards a flexible layout that enables individual as well as team work, especially the opportunity for small groups to take breaks together on inviting sofas.

A prominent counter made of glass bricks not only gives the lounge a clear orientation, but also serves as a contact point for the guests’ needs: here, the concierge hands out ordered parcels and deliveries, accepts laundry for cleaning, coordinates appointments and is the person to attend to all Denizen’s questions and requests.

Past the reception, further in the back, wooden paravents and partitions made of glass bricks – a distinct recurring material – create separate areas with intimate work- places. Tables divided by screens and individual booths with heavy curtains provide the necessary visual and acoustic isolation for focus.

Apart from the lounge, Denizen House has a café next door serving breakfast, lunch and drinks that is fully open to the public. It’s a place where mem- bers can use the in-house app to pay and even to order from the comfort of their workplace.

The app can be used to manage the membership as well as book additional activities and services: after-work events such as panel discussions and receptions take place in the lounge, whilst the adjacent in-house self-care studio invites members to regular yoga, meditation and sports classes.

Here, translucent curtains ensure privacy from the street and produce soft, diffused light that reflects in the long studio mirror divided by wooden frames.

Cleverly integrated changing rooms with heavy curtains (helping with the sound absorption) and showers can be used by Denizens at any time, even outside of classes: the café and studio can be found in the carefully converted old building, which is connected to the lounge in the new structure via a leafy courtyard.