Studio Milch

Celia Ibarra and Leonie Häner on colour, atmosphere and how to light a room through winter.

  • In the Room
  • 4 min read

Our Jounral of conversations with the designers and architects whose spaces we admire. For the first edition we spoke to Studio Milch about atmosphere, light, color, the projects that taught them most. How to light a home once it’s dark by five. Ideas you can take into your own rooms this winter.

Seven years ago, Celia Ibarra and Leonie Häner started mixing and matching. Architecture with interiors, quiet with bold, and their own initials into Milch.

The studio began with a house for Celia’s family. Today it designs restaurants, bars, boutique hotels and homes across Switzerland. They question both interior and architecture together, so a material choice can change a detail,

and the way people move through a room can change the layout. Color almost always finds its way in their work and ripples into their real life. 

Setting the mood

Much of their work is in restaurants, bars and studios, where the light decides how long people stay. “In a restaurant you always think in settings,” Celia says. Lunch needs more light. In the evening the same brightness leaves guests feeling exposed to everyone outside. So they plan several sources, from overheads and wall lamps to light over the bar, and put them all on dimmers. 

Done well, each table becomes what they call a micro cosmos: “this little light that’s with you and the person you’re at the table with” to make a intimate environment. 

When a room doesn’t allow that, they find another way. At VVOO, a yoga studio where the floor belongs to the mats, they hung hand-sewn fabric in waves beneath the  lights. 

The fabric softens the direct light and filters it, and the whole space takes on a gentler, calmer atmosphere.

  • Peppino, by Studio Milch and photographed by Olivia Pulver
  • Peppino, by Studio Milch and photographed by Olivia Pulver
  • VVOO, by Studio Milch

A light worth looking at

Restaurants used to light every table the same way and leave the special lamps to people’s homes. Celia and Leonie like bringing those lamps into restaurants, especially when the light is also the thing you look at.

They point to Magdalena, the Michelin-starred restaurant in Switzerland, where one of Dehgraf's sculptural pendants hangs over the dining room and gives it its structure. In fine dining, where some guests want privacy, a large light can divide a room the way a screen would, without closing it off. 



See the Magdalena project
Magdalena sculptural pendant by Dehgraf

This divide can work in homes too. A villa Studio Milch is designing in Rüschlikon has a staircase in the basement with no daylight, and the low corners around it are no use for furniture. “It’s wonderful to work with awkward niches where you can’t put anything functional, and create atmosphere with something creative” with a light. 

Dark by five

 5 Tips by Studio Milch on how to light your home when it gets dark by five. Most of what works in a restaurant works at home, and it matters most when the 

  1. Bring the light down

    A single light in the middle of the ceiling rarely sets a mood. It flattens the room, puts shadows under the eyes and fades the further you sit from it. Several smaller lamps at different heights do far more while creating atmosphere.

    Cube - Table Lamp · CHF 350.00

  2. Light the corners

    “Put a lamp there. It doesn’t have to be efficient, it just has to light the corner.” Once the edges are lit, you see the full size of the room.

    Mellow Table Lamp · CHF 220.00

  3. Choose warm light

    The mistake they see most flats is cold light, chosen because people assume warm light is too dim to read by. A warm bulb with enough lumens is cosy and still bright.

    Space Age - Round Wall Lamp · From CHF 850.00

  4. Be bold with one piece

    Most people are still a little scared of color and scale. Studio Milch lead clients towards the bold ideas which nearly always make it into the room. At home, that can be a single piece with more color or more presence than feels safe. Once you see it lit, it rarely looks like a risk.

    Space Age - Groovy Pendant Lamp · CHF 980.00 Sold out

  5. Shifting the focus

    “At home, you can borrow the way a restaurant changes between lunch and dinner: light the table for a meal, then dim it and let a smaller lamp take over afterwards. The room stays the same, but the focus shifts.”

    Cube - Pendant Lamp · CHF 460.00

“A real design piece”

It started with a birthday present: a pink Gioia vase, given to Celia two years ago, which went straight to the Studio Milch atelier. After that, they kept spotting Dehgraf pieces in boutiques around them. A Space Age Twin wall lamp has since joined the vase, switched on even in daylight, as much sculpture as light.

They had seen 3D-printed objects before but nothing like these, “soft” , "premium" it's  “ a real design piece.”

Studio Milch’s Objects of choice

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Find more of Celia and Leonie's work at studiomilch.ch