Creative Spaces: Batten and Kamp

Batten and Kamp is a Hong Kong-based interdisciplinary studio creating unique objects and interiors. The practice was founded by creative couple Alexandra Batten and Daniel Kamp, a decade after their first meeting.  

‘We met in our first year of university — we lived in the same halls of residence and were studying design together at the time. We both claim to be fiercely independent, so it’s taken us ten years of working in parallel careers to finally start a business together. We’ve always had a strong influence on each other’s work, and over the years we developed a combined aesthetic and creative language. Coming together for work just made sense,’ says Batten.

As for the duo’s interior design ethos? ‘Beauty first. Beauty in the approach of doing as little to the existing as is required. To be gentle and sincere in our response to materials and resourceful in the way we use them,’ she adds. 

It’s an ethos that’s quickly evident in the pair’s beautifully minimalistic creative space, into which they moved just a couple of months ago.  

‘We’d been looking at this building for a while, as it’s nestled between the mountains and the sea, right on the edge of Kennedy Town. Both Dan and I grew up surrounded by nature and long for that connection but are also drawn to contemporary culture. We adore it here — for us it sums up that mix of nature and modernity we love most about Hong Kong,’ says Batten.

‘The studio is a work in progress and will probably be eternally incomplete,’ adds Kamp. ‘It’s an ex-factory space and currently exists as a raw shell divided minimally with over-length curtains that bunch on the ground and just one white partition wall that separates the workshop. We love when a space's imperfections tell you about its history, so we try to change the surface finishes as little as possible. This space is full of that. For example, we removed a few partition walls, and the resulting gaps left in the tile floors tell a story of how the space used to be. Those gaps just exist as gaps for now and we plan to fill them with a different type of tile to continue that story.’

But the space itself is not the end of the story. ‘The space is full of our own work and a few pieces from friends who work in a similar spirit, so we’re completely surrounded by our process. Overall, it feels somewhere between half-finished gallery and airy but busy creative studio,’ concludes Kamp.