Discover Benelux | Design | Made in Belgium
Sophisticated designs with a clever twist TEXT: THESSA LAGEMAN | PHOTOS: BYANOUK
Anouk Taeymans, 29, a versatile architect and designer from Antwerp, expresses her sense of aesthetics with her design label byANOUK and her witty lifestyle brand #BITCHPLEASE. She also gives advice as a design expert to individuals and on Belgian national television. She is proudest of MYSHELF, her innovative design shelf that was launched earlier this year.
The idea came when she was living in a small apartment in Norway, and was looking for a way to create a few nice-looking shelves in her living room that would fit perfectly. “It turned out many people are looking for something similar,” she says. Immediately, she received many enthusiastic reactions and orders through her web shop. Soon she will offer the shelf in furniture shops as well.
The shelf, an inventive combination of creativity and technology, is made from oak wood. “A beautiful, timeless material,” says Taeymans. “People love the fact the shelf is completely adjustable in length and that it can be personalised with all kinds of add-ons: boxes, hooks and rails.”
Scandinavian designs
14 | Issue 36 | December 2016
After Taeymans graduated as a civil engineer architect in Belgium, she lived in Norway for four years working as an architect. She also acquired a masters in project management and entrepreneurship and taught sustainable architecture at the Uni-
versity of Trondheim. When she returned to Belgium to establish her own brand byANOUK, she was very much inspired by typical Scandinavian designs and the sophisticated interiors of the North. “In Scandinavia, home interiors are considered very important, because with the long winters people spend a lot of time indoors,” Taeymans noticed. Therefore, people are often prepared to spend quite a lot of money on it. “They love to have robust, quality furniture and appreciate bright, airy rooms with natural materials, like wood, stone and marble.” She noticed that in Belgium more and more people are starting to care about