After fourteen years of quiet, deliberate growth from Vancouver, lighting brand A-N-D is opening its first permanent showroom outside Canada – in a listed Copenhagen courtyard building that once printed paper. Three floors, three functions and a design philosophy built on iteration, not repetition.

Canadian lighting brand A-N-D opens its first permanent showroom outside Canada this June, during 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen

all images courtesy of A-N-D, unless stated otherwise | image © Luis Valdizo

At some point in the conversation, words stop being enough. Lukas Peet has been talking for twenty minutes – about refinement, about the measured pace of fourteen years, about a building in Copenhagen that used to print paper and will soon hold light – and then he says: let me just show you. The screen shares. The renders open. And what language had been circling around becomes, suddenly, visible. Grounded in color. Generous in proportion. Not loud. There is a darkness to the palette that feels considered rather than fashionable, and a weight to the objects that the photographs had not quite prepared you for. This, it turns out, is what Canadian design looks like – not as a definition, but as a collection of notions. This June, during 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen, A-N-D will open the doors to their first permanent showroom outside of Canada.

the brand was founded in Vancouver fourteen years ago by Lukas Peet, Caine Heintzman and Matt Davis | image © Gabriel Cabrera

three designers who came to lighting from different directions and recognised they were looking for the same thing | image © Gabriel Cabrera

‘Design is not a compromise. Design is a conversation’

That principle has a cost – and A-N-D are candid about it. Asked about failure, Peet doesn’t reach for the word. What he describes instead is a method: slow growth, constant iteration, every product informing the next. The Pebble – a sculptural glass pendant first shown at Euroluce 2019 – tells that story well. It began as a handmade piece, with artisans producing forms within a controlled range of variation. The range turned out to be too wide. Clients expected what the photograph showed, and A-N-D has always insisted that what you see is exactly what you get – real photography, no renders, no flattering distance between image and object. The consequence was years of development across countries and manufacturers, until the form could be reproduced consistently from a mould. A revised version arrives in Copenhagen. Design is not a compromise, Peet says. Design is a conversation.

the showroom in Copenhagen occupies a listed heritage building, a former paper printing press in a Copenhagen courtyard | image © Gabriel Cabrera

Three floors, each with a different function: gallery, technical lab, café

The building as instrument

The space itself is a listed heritage building – a former paper printing press, somewhere in a Copenhagen courtyard. High ceilings, large industrial windows, a classic backyard staircase leading to the entrance. In a few weeks, the courtyard will be crowded. Music will drift down from the upper floors. For now, there are renders. Three floors, each with a different function. The word that keeps returning is refinement. The showroom is not a stage set, not an atmosphere exercise. It is an instrument – designed, as Peet puts it, to make the product understood. On the ground floor, the Showroom Gallery: the newest collections presented with a clarity that is almost austere.

‘Canada and Scandinavia simply feel natural together. A shared relationship to quality. A similar restraint toward the loud’

To the left, Caine Heintzman’s Pace series. To the right, Peet’s Tier. On a table just over five metres long: Contour and the revised Pebble. Further back, the Column – now with an endless extension capability – and Pipeline, Heintzman’s very first design for the brand, revised and returned. Furniture by Vancouver maker Christian Woo, a close friend, gives scale and suggests use without competing. Along the walls, large-format LED lightboxes with brand photography glow at a frequency that is somewhere between art and argument. The message on entering is meant to be immediate and singular: this is a lighting company.

the ground floor of Copenhagen’s showroom presents the newest collections with near-austere clarity

the basement strips out daylight entirely, offering a controlled environment for understanding finishes, modularity and installation in detail

In the basement, the Technical Lab, things become darker and more precise. The heritage floor is untouched – a constraint that became a decision. All light in the space comes from walls fully lined with wall fixtures, and from illuminated sample racks running through the centre. Dimmers and switches allow every product to be experienced in a fully controlled, daylight-free environment. Finish swatches, prototypes, process objects. The basement is perhaps the most telling floor of all – built not for impression, but for understanding. It’s about giving people confidence, Peet says. That they really understand what they’re ordering.

‘If someone walks in and asks: where are you from? What is this? – that is when a conversation begins’

On the second floor, the Café A-N-D Bar – a continuation of the activation format A-N-D first introduced the year before. La Marzocco, the Italian company known around the world for its handcrafted, detailed high-end espresso machines, is partnering again this year. At the centre of the room, a column installation with sound, dimmed at different levels. A little like a church, Peet says, then corrects himself immediately. But not really. A contemplative space. Coffee, light, music still to be decided.

the revised Pebble pendant (2019) arrives after years of development to bring a handmade glass form to consistent reproduction

a story that captures how A-N-D works: slow growth, constant iteration, every product informing the next

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