The Belgian design practice Studio LOHO is known for its sculptural interiors, but hospitality came first. Before launching the company in 2017, co-founder Jo Hoeven had planned to run a small guesthouse, producing the furniture and fittings himself. “It was almost a pretext to make things,” he says. This summer, he and creative partner Karel Loontiens have come full circle with Jonojé, a six-suite guesthouse in a converted former brush factory on the outskirts of Bruges, that also serves as the studio’s gallery and headquarters.
“Jonojé is what happens when the studio has had 10 years to think,” says Hoeven. The listed building retains its industrial shell, while the interiors draw on Japanese design through a palette of clay, lime and raw concrete – deliberately contrasting with rather than echoing the building’s former life. Organically plastered walls sit alongside clay washbasins and freestanding ceramic shower capsules, while one bedroom has a sculptural bathtub moulded from a single piece of clay. “We’ve learned that glazing objects of that scale is extraordinarily difficult to do without imperfections appearing somewhere,” says Hoeven. “Which makes this one quietly precious to us.”
The same hands-on approach extends beyond the interiors. Breakfast is served in the bedrooms rather than a communal dining room, with Hoeven and Loontiens baking the sourdough and making the whipped butter and jams themselves before serving them on ceramics made by the studio. For Hoeven, it all comes back to making things by hand. “It would feel dishonest to do it any other way.”
For more information, go to jonoje.com
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