The founding principal and design director of NN Studio shares about her passion for design, starting her business in her 20s and using her creative talent to give back.
Nikita Stephanie was a busy child. “I had ballet class, art class and piano lessons. My mum loved planting and gardening, so we explored different varieties of fruit trees, especially tropical fruits and flowers, and planting them in our garden,” recalls Nikita, whose parents encouraged her to explore diverse interests. She is the founding principal and design director of NN Studio, based in Singapore and Indonesia.
Travelling was also a big part of growing up. “My dad liked to introduce my siblings and I to foreign cultures. Also, my mom is from Java, so she always brought us to Central and East Java from time to time. We used to hate it because it was so inaccessible and the journey took a long time back then. But I was immersed to a lot of beautiful craftsmanship and handiwork from such a young age,” reflects the architect who grew up in Bandung, Indonesia.
All these experiences set the groundwork for her creative life and career. “[They] made me very hands-on in my work; I enjoy the process of creating, inventing things,” Nikita remarks. This sensibility is palpable in her projects, such as the TOTO Gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia, where framed views of stone gardens and a theatrical skylight enhance the experience of shopping for sanitary wares.
Despite Nikita’s feminine demeanour, the entrepreneur resonates stealth and clarity. She admits that she had always been a stellar student who was self-driven to compete with her classmates. After architecture studies in UNPAR, Bandung, as well as London and Singapore after that, Nikita started NN Studio at only 26 years old – an age when many young architects are still finding their way while gaining experience in the industry.
Being a young, female architect and owner of her own business was tough. “Contractors or sub-contractors tended to underestimate me,” Nikita shares. Her first project was right after graduation, where she designed the houses of a friend’s parents in Bandung and Denpasar. “It was very exciting and challenging at the same time,” says Nikita, who was keen to apply her skills to real life.
When asked which of her projects is the most significant, she replies, “I feel the next project is always the favourite one.” The current ‘favourites’ then are two hotels – a resort in Bali and a heritage hotel in Bandung. These are dream projects for Nikita as she had always wanted to design hotels, ‘to be able to translate the story of the place into the architectural and interior details that people would be able to experience and enjoy.” Compared to designing luxury homes, they will allow more people to encounter spaces through her lens.
The entrepreneurial Nikita also founded Marmo with her husband, who runs premium stone supplier, K Stone. It makes use of stone off-cuts to create furniture and objects that Nikita designs. She and her husband are not only business partners but also travel mates. Every year, both visit Italy together for his work. While there, they explore different parts of Europe.
A recent trip saw her visiting Reschio in Umbria and Forestis in the Dolomites. On the former, she shares, “Reschio is a thousand-year-old castle, meticulously restored and stylishly reimagined into a dazzling hotel. It’s an experience of staying in such a place and waking up in the middle of Tuscany to nothing [but views of nature]. They offered horse riding in the forest, which was so fun!”
These trips also help Nikita to build up her inspiration bank. “A modern wellness resort like Forestis is about the silent moment between yourself and the great nature, to find yourself, to be able to disconnect from the rest of the world,” she says. “I always need these kinds of moments as a creative. [From projects like Reschio], I learned about the details, the materials and feeling of spaces from the past; it’s like learning from grandparents.”
In terms of personal style, Nikita is drawn to objects with history. “I like elegant, classic pieces with a touch of effortless sophistication,” she says. White is a preferred wardrobe colour, and Nikita has plentiful crisp white shirts and linen in the same or similar designs, but all are of superior quality “because I wear my clothes for many years.” Heritage brands like Cartier also appeal to her as they mirror her creative ethos of innovation, craftsmanship and timeless design.
Perhaps this appreciation of craft comes from her mother, who inherited many vintage furniture pieces and objects from Nikita’s great grandparents and even great-great grandparents. “My mother is Chinese Indonesian but her family has been in Java for a few generations before her. So we have some vintage vases, [old] wooden furniture, bronze objects and even brown soy sauce vases – the big vases used to ferment soy sauce,” says Nikita, who used to find them “old and uninteresting” but now cherish these receptacles.
Despite her busy schedule, she finds time to do charity work in Yahukimo, a town in Central Papua, Indonesia. NN Studio is helping to create a proper school to boost the area’s educational scene. “We are creating something from the local context. We chose local river stones from the nearby site for the walls, and the construction and partitions are made of local timber,” Nikita explains.
This project reflects true commitment, as it takes time to just travel to the locale. “In March this year, we visited to do a presentation to the local government officials. We flew five hours from Jakarta to reach Jayapura, then took a small plane to Yahukimo for an hour and arrived at the middle of the forest. The people speak Bahasa Indonesia like me so we were all able to converse,” Nikita says. “It was a nationalist moment for us.”
It is quite clear that she is well suited for the architecture profession. In fact, it appears destined, as Nikita recounts an event from childhood. “When I was eight years old, my dad was building a new house for us on an empty plot of land. I remember giving him and the builder input. I remember the site meetings and sourcing for materials. We would also visit stone warehouses and get the sanitary wares.”
The enthusiastic Nikita even designed her own room. “I sketched a layout and a coloured [3D drawing], and proposed it to my dad,” she said before chuckling on the irony of her next sentence, “it did not get approval in the end!”
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Text: Luo Jingmei
Photography: Marcus Lim
Assisted by: Hui Xian
Art direction: Leyna Poh
Hair and Makeup: Angel Gwee
Using: Huda Beauty and Virtue for hair
Location Marmo Singapore/ Courtesy of NN Studio
