Roísín Lafferty Designs Artemest’s First London Penthouse
The Irish creative conceived a breathtaking Embassy Garden aerie as a showcase for the brand’s distinct assortment of Italian design
Stretching across the 17th and 18th floors of a spectacular building in Embassy Gardens—a manicured complex with 1,500 residences, offices, restaurants, and bars in London’s Nine Elms neighborhood—the penthouse beckons with a stunning assortment of Italian furnishings and accoutrements. In the dining room, a sophisticated chandelier of conical lights surmounts a decadent travertine dining table. In the living area, a deeply tufted sofa abuts a layered cocktail table with complementary cubic cutouts. A bedroom suite awash in sumptuous shades of dark, dusty rose highlights a sultry multi-panel artwork.
It’s not inconceivable to mistake the residence as a thoughtfully curated pied-à-terre for a globally minded collector. However, it’s actually a gallery for Artemest, the online marketplace for Italian design, representing the brand’s first London location following pop-up installations in Milan during the annual design week. Curated by Irish designer Roísín Lafferty in collaboration with Embassy Gardens’ developer, Ballymore, the address layers rich, earthy shades with tactile materials and sculptural accents.
“Italian design has my heart—the craftsmanship, the detail, the design, there’s just nothing like it in the world,” says Lafferty, who filled the £6.95m penthouse with decadent furniture, lighting, and objects by inspired makers such as Paola Navone, Kose Milano, NasonMoretti, Carabottino, and more. Having shopped Artemest since its inception and a collaborator in the brand’s first L’Appartemento in Milan, Lafferty cultivated a warm interior that offered a welcoming reprieve to the city’s notorious gloomy weather viewed from the large-scale windows looking out across the skyline.
“I wanted to create a feeling of almost like you’re putting on rose-tinted glasses,” says Lafferty. “There’s a warm, kind of femininity to it and the color was such a huge part. The doors blend in, the architecture blends in, so straightaway its an atmosphere where you breathe and relax.”
The project is just the latest in what has been a prolific year for the designer. In June, she introduced her own by-appointment gallery space in Dublin, featuring vintage treasures such as a Les Lalanne screen or Jorge Zalszupin pieces alongside furniture and lighting by Bryan O’Sullivan, Tom Faulkner, and Edwyn James as well as art by Jan Cools, Molly Judd, and Daniëlle Siobhán, among others—a dream almost 10 years in the making.
“The best way for someone to understand what we do is to experience a space that we created,” she says of the gallery that also showcases her own collections, including Sphere, a special assortment of furnishings carved from marble she sources from a private quarry in Pietrasanta, Italy. “A lot of our projects are private residential, so obviously the homeowners get to experience them, but people in general don’t get to. That feeling, that atmosphere that you step into, that’s what we wanted to do with the gallery.”
For the endeavor, Lafferty drew inspiration from cherished fashion designers like Alexander McQueen or Balenciaga. “I know we’re not in fashion, but for me there’s a real synergy there,” she says. “I wanted people to be able to come into a space that is fully designed by us, and brought to life by our preferred specialists and craftspeople.”
Based in Dublin, Lafferty’s multifaceted studio creates private homes, hospitality spaces, and commercial interiors distinct for their sculptural elements and bold use of visually daring materials. “For me, creativity is at the core,” says Lafferty, who also introduced her first-ever stone collection with Aria Stone during Texas Design Week. “We do decoration once we have inherently altered the space because for me, that’s the really exciting part. For private homes, you can go against the grain and maybe not have things laid out in the way you always thought they had to be. I love to really play, always trying to do something that’s different.”
Tour the new Roísín Lafferty Gallery in Dublin
Included in Lafferty’s portfolio are a bold 19th-century villa on the Irish coastline featuring a sinuous stair of green Vottoria Regia quartzite or a townhouse turned installation art with walls enveloped in a cobalt polished plaster, creating almost a hall of mirrors effect. “I am obsessed with kind of the detailing, the transitions and the combination of materials,” says the designer who utilizes portals and framing of views in her work to a transcendent effect. “I’m always trying to evoke a feeling in people. I’ve always loved the magical stories from childhood that have stuck with me; I want people to be taken to another world.”