Meet the 2025 Interior Awards jury: Amanda Harkness
Architecture NZ’s deputy editor and interior editor Amanda Harkness is once again this year’s Interior Awards jury convenor.
The first of two daily lunch sittings for BIG employees at the studio’s HQ in Nordhavn, Copenhagen.
Models on display on the ground floor include BIG’s Noma (in foreground) and its World Architecture Festival-winning project, CopenHill (behind).
Natural timber offsets the large volume of raw concrete throughout the space.
Originally fitted out as a flat for Bjarke Ingels, the top floor now provides meeting spaces for employees and clients. The seating is a BIG design.
Section model of BIG’s HQ in Nordhavn, Copenhagen.
The view from the top floor down to the BIG-designed landscaping at the pier’s end.
The top floor opens to a landscaped terrace area.
Amanda Harkness is the deputy editor and interior editor at Architecture NZ and a former editor of Houses magazine. Her writing is largely focused on interior projects, from workplace and hospitality to retail and residential. This is Amanda’s fifth year as convenor of the Interior Awards jury.
Is there an interior space that has made an impression on you recently?
Amanda Harkness (AH): I was in Denmark in January with my family and, as a big fan of BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), I was very happy to be able to check out a few of their projects — Noma, CopenHill and the Urban Rigger water dwellings. The practice itself is situated at the end of a pier in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn, not far from the beautiful Audo House. Its light-filled and relatively quiet (for a studio housing so many) interior seems subdued yet dramatic at once. A large entry foyer soars four-stories high, with a black steel stair linking the floors of distinct expertise — landscape, architecture, planning, engineering and product design.
The extensive use of concrete (more environmentally-friendly than most I’m told, thanks to the addition of clay and lime) is tempered with timber joinery and panels throughout, and the studio’s models and products are on display on each level. On the ground floor, the central placement of the kitchen and dining space speaks to the importance of eating together (as with Athfield’s Wellington studio) and every floor opens out onto terraces for fresh air get togethers. The space has a very calming quality and a refreshing simplicity – I’d be very happy to work here.
Who do you admire within the interior design industry and why?
AH: Architectural Digest recently profiled designer Robert Stilin’s Brooklyn loft, in what was previously a raw, industrial New York dock building. The conversion is full of history and soul, the many layers giving you a sense of connection to what was once there. Generous spaces are filled with art, lamps, books and comfortable armchairs and sofas, with large volumes broken up invisibly by the arrangement of furniture and other items. Stilin seems to have a knack for creating welcoming, lived-in spaces that are full of personality, interest and warmth.
What are you looking forward to while judging the Interior Awards 2025?
AH: I always enjoy meeting new people from within the industry and seeing the connections made between our jurors and designers they may have heard of but not met before. The question session at the end of each presentation can shed so much more light on a project and the people behind it – for someone that’s naturally curious like me, it’s such a bonus to have that opportunity to learn more.
Click here for more on the Interior Awards and here to submit your projects to the 2025 Interior Awards before Wednesday 30 April.
