Lensvelt presented DINKY DUTCH

During Milan Design Week 2023 we celebrated the launch of Dinky Dutch, a concept by Erik Kessels executed by interior designer Alberto Monteverde, furniture by Richard Hutten and Powerhouse Company for Lensvelt, lighting by Modular and a hand-painted mural by artist Sjeng Kessels.

Every aspect of the interior translates the talent of the individual parties and designers that come together in this Milan hotspot.

Lensvelt transformed its favorite restaurant Dinky in Milan with a spectacular interior. This is not a temporary pop-up created especially for Milan Design Week, to be discarded after a week. This interior is sustainable and here to stay from now on and beyond!

From the eye-level comfort of Lensvelt design furniture with chairs by Richard Hutten and Powerhouse Company, you experience the best of traditional Italian cuisine. As you enjoy the tasteful experience, you will look up from your plate to admire the walls and ceiling, designed and painted by artist Sjeng Kessels, that will take you anywhere from salivating to stimulating.
 
The lighting by Modular Lighting Instruments creates the perfect ambience in the room. 
 
Ristorante Dinky, Viale Brianza, 36, 20127 Milano

This Bucket Chair

eco-friendly and made entirely from 100% post-consumer plastic.

Lensvelt launched This Bucket Chair as a logical continuation of the This Chair (2004) a highly functional and sustainable conference chair, designed by Richard Hutten. This Bucket Chair is part of the same THIS family, with the same cross section and the same seating comfort of the shell, carefully developed with the help of an ergonomist.

Richard Hutten and Lensvelt remain committed to creating design that is accessible and aimed at promoting environmentally friendly practices and reducing waste.

Post-consumer plastic is material that has been used by consumers and collected from recycling bins or waste management facilities and requires more sorting and cleaning, it is truly recycling. Post-industrial plastic is the waste from the production of plastics. It is a leftover from the manufacturing process. It's still a process that uses fossil resources. Recycling post-consumer plastics is important for waste reduction and resource conservation.

A low-value raw material (post-consumer waste) can be given a high-value use, promoting sustainability and circularity.

The shell of the This Bucket Chair is made of 100% post-consumer plastic. This is one of the ways we contribute to a better environment.

Contract market services and design

With our contract market services, we help architects and interior designers realize their ideal concept. With our own designs, with custom-made products and as a dealer of other well-known brands.

The completion of the Dinky project came about with our architect Carlo Alberto Monteverde, who designed the interior.

Would you like to know more about Lensvelt Contract Market Services? Please contact us via info@lensvelt.nl or visit our office in Breda or Amsterdam. We will be happy to help you.

Carlo Alberto Monteverde – Architect about Dinky Dutch:

"When I first saw Erik Kessels' and Hans Lensvelt's concept for the Dinky Restaurant, I immediately got to the core of it. I thought about how to create the strongest contrast between the 2 parts of the restaurant we were going to create. A lower, square, functional and simple part needed to be a support to enhance Sjeng Kessels' artwork as much as possible. The minimalist boiserie, made of a rhythm of black wooden panels, let the painted ceiling stand out, thanks to a hidden system of wall LED lights. The colorful, round and organically shaped furniture on the floor is, in my opinion, the only connection to the eclectic artwork on the ceiling, almost like "flowers falling from the tree" designed by the artist".

Coquille - a classic yet innovative swivel chair

Together with Powerhouse Company, Lensvelt developed an indoor/outdoor chair called Coquille.  A classic yet innovative chair, technically advanced and handmade in Italy. Coquille is also 100% recycable and available in every color imaginable. The original inspiration for Coquille was a classic, modernist, curved wood and rattan bistro chair, named after Boticelli's Birth of Venus.

Together with Powerhouse Company, we have developed a chair that is solid, durable, comfortable and well-designed, which for us is sober, functional and logical.

The tubular steel chair is surprisingly sophisticated and a tribute to one of nature's most amazing designs - and to human ingenuity: technically daring and handmade in Italy.

Using steel, we have developed a design that is a total object, a one-piece sculpture. The generous back, with its elegantly curved ribs, rests on a swivel base that rests on four legs, each with a boldly curved profile.

For Dinky's restaurant, the Coquille chairs were spray painted in a stunning custom turquoise.

Erik Kessels on the EMPTY CHAIR

"Like a slice in your meal, Dinky has been cut in half. Due Dinky. From the eye-level comfort of Lensvelt design furniture, you experience the best of traditional Italian cuisine. A tasteful experience. Now look up from your plate. The walls and ceiling, designed and painted by the artist Sjeng Kessels, let you wander anywhere between salivating and stimulating.

The setting of the new restaurant was perfect for the addition of a single EMPTY CHAIR. A chair I developed in collaboration with Hans Lensvelt as a result of my book 'A Pictorial History of the Empty Chair'.

Lensvelt embraced the concept and brought it to life by producing and developing the chair and offering it as a package: Buy the book, get the chair. The book is tastefully attached to the underside of the seat.

‘EMPTY CHAIR’ is a work that deals with the theme of absence. When we look at an empty chair, we wonder who might be sitting there. Not knowing and not seeing makes us curious and makes it more exciting".

The book EMPTY CHAIR was created by Erik Kessels in collaboration with Karel De Mulder.

If you are interested in purchasing an EMPTY CHAIR, please contact our sales team.