Interior Design: Martin Brudnizki
Text: Abigail Stone
Published as:
Members Only
As gray sweats have given way to polished activewear, so too have dark and drafty gyms yielded to chic athletic centers. Cresting the trend is Heimat, located in Los Angeles, which bills itself as the world’s first fitness and wellness concept club.
The name, plucked from the German word for the feeling of belonging, suggests its 75,000 square feet, which sprawl over five floors of a former General Motors showroom, will be an all-day destination. Certainly its location within the burgeoning Sycamore Arts District (Holly Hunt, JF Chen, Ralph Pucci, Apparatus, Regen Projects, Jeffrey Deitch and LAXArt are all nearby), its amenities (there’s a spa, a salon, a co-working space, a rooftop pool, and a restaurant in addition its inspirational workout rooms), and its extended hours (from 5 am to midnight) make a compelling case. So do its luxurious interiors.
As conceived by Martin Brudnizki, Heimat’s rooftop restaurant, Mother Tongue, and its fourth floor co-working space, with their sherbet-drenched interiors, channel-tufted banquettes, flirtatious lighting and curvaceous seating—not to mention its sweeping views and Michelin-starred chef Michael Mina’s global, health-aware menu—champion rewarding effort with opulent indulgence.
“The starting point for the interior was to create its own identity while honoring the vision and experience of Heimat so the restaurant could stand alone as its own destination within the city,” Brudnizki says. “Whether mixing patterns from Morocco with a coastal Californian color palette or by blending punchy terrazzo with more naturally ingrained materials or the mix of calacatta marble for the countertop and old English molded tiles for the bar front, the idea was to create an exciting and eclectic mix of styles that translated into a playful and fun ambience. Somewhere you can go for breakfast or cocktails in the evening, the interiors work whatever the occasion.”
That rewarding effort takes place on the three lower floors. Berlin-based Inco Media led by creative director and CEO Christian Gröschel, envisions slick state-of-the art equipment, from Technogym and Gym80, poised against sensual backdrops of glamorous materials. Note the heavy burnished gold doors or the reception area warmed by Lim & Handtryck’s floral wallpaper, velvet ochre sofas, rattan coffee tables and leather poufs clustered around an emerald faux fireplace. In the cardio room, Molo Design’s Cloud Softlights temper the labor suggested by the rows of ellipticals and treadmills.
A sybaritic second floor offers Dyson hairdryers, marble and mirror-wrapped locker rooms and, in the meditation room, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona daybeds. Rainbows, courtesy of colored Mondrian-inspired Lucite panels, dance over the third floor’s sculptural weight and circuit training machines. Uniting the quintet of floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, inspiring murals by emerging artists like Abel Macias, Jessalyn Brooks and Sophie Dherbecourt, voluptuous slabs of book-matched marble and bamboo herringbone floors, position Heimat as environment intended to captivate. Home was never like this. heimat.com
