In Conversation

Kasper Egelund (Vipp): »My whole concept grew out of failure«

Time for a chat! We talked to Kasper Egelund, third generation co-owner and CEO of the Danish design brand Vipp about architecture, design and his passion for holiday houses.

by Jan Hamer und Ulrich Stefan Knoll in January 2025

The begin­nings of the design company Vipp goes back to the 1930s and for a long time there was only one product: the legendary Vipp dustbin. Kasper Egelund then turned Vipp into a design label with a wide range of pro­ducts.

In 2014 Vipp set out to enter a new market: Design cabins – laun­ching the modular Vipp Shelter. The shelter attracted a lot of attention but only few buyers. Ten years later, there are several other Vipp holiday homes apart from the shelter: Vipp Farm­house, Vipp Chimney House and Vipp Cold Hawaii for example – and more are coming.

We spoke to Kasper Egelund about the idea behind the Vipp houses and his inspiring pro­jects.

Hello Kasper, nice to meet you! Where are you right now?

Actually, in our Copen­hagen head­quarters. I should have been sitting in our holiday home right now, but that did not work out as the children are still at school.

Tell us a bit about your holiday houses. What was the idea behind them?

The whole story started in 2010 with a fragile, floating pro­totype in Sweden called Vipp Shelter. I tried to create a house in the way we invent pro­ducts, and the project indeed got a lot of attention from the public and the press. Wall­paper, for example, awarded it the “coolest brand extension ever” at that time.

Can you build houses in the way you build
cars or boats. No!

Kasper Egelund

After two years of attention and applause and visitors, I had sold only one to an Ame­rican. I could not convert it to any­thing that made sense at that moment and it failed com­mer­cially. At that point, I still didn’t want to rent it out, as it had to be fresh for potential cus­tomers.

What hap­pened next?

Then I changed my mind. Shipping a high-end prefab house around the world is not viable. Plus, you have a lot of national and regional regu­la­tions on your cus­tomers’ side …

I switched to renting it out, as many people had been inte­rested in it during those two years. So I deve­loped a guest concept. And I could see that it worked! Happy cus­tomers, I got some­thing meaningful out of it.

My whole concept grew out of failure.
A totally dis­as­trous failure. I ran headlong into a war …

Kasper Egelund

An inte­resting story for everyone. You try some­thing. You can either win or learn. And I learned.

I deve­loped Vipp Loft and Vipp Pencil Case in Denmark, which gave us the oppor­tunity to build more pro­jects. I have always been pas­sionate about merging archi­tecture and design, to build up a small, unique uni­verse.

In the meantime, we have deve­loped 12 guest­houses and rent them out. With Vipp Todos Santos in Mexico we have just opened our first guest­house outside Europe. And today we’re working on four new pro­jects. In January we’re opening Vipp Tunnel House in Tas­mania, then a house in Upstate New York and an accom­mo­dation in the High­lands of Scotland will follow, as well as one in Iceland. We are also inves­ti­gating options for Italy, France, Spain and Por­tugal.

Each time, we’re trying to do a bit better, and I’m quite sure already that our new pro­jects will be on the next level. The momentum is so strong now.

All the houses can only be rented via our Vipp website.

How do you rent out the houses?

As many of these pro­jects as pos­sible will be on your platform. Because when I have external partners, I tell them what our shared goal is. If they say: I want to rent some­thing out, I will tell them, we have this amazing partner in Germany, we will put it on URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR. Otherwise, if they do not really want to rent it out, we will just keep it here in the Vipp uni­verse.

How do you find the places, how do you develop the pro­jects?

I have a very good team for spatial planning, and I think I have an eye for good loca­tions myself.
The interior design is done by our design team, in col­la­bo­ration with a local team, who mainly do the archi­tecture. We work with various archi­tects for the pro­jects. Our team makes sure that the aes­thetics really match the uni­verse of Vipp.

We have heard about a series of events you are curr­ently orga­nizing in Copen­hagen, the “Supper Club”.

I am pas­sionate about my pro­jects, the Supper Club and the guest houses. The Supper Club is great fun, I meet new people that I wouldn’t meet otherwise. What I’m looking for in life is like my Supper Club: good people, new fri­end­ships, people app­re­ciating archi­tecture, design, art, food… that’s what moti­vates me. You must join us for the next event!

What do you do if one of your guest houses fails?

Like URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR, Vipp is a promise of quality. People trust us, so we must be reliable.

Building a house is a long process and a stress test, so you can quickly dis­cover, if the people involved are really com­mitted. We are a 3rd gene­ration company and are not inte­rested in short-term, super­ficial stra­tegies.
You can never do these kinds of pro­jects without running into an issue; but so far, it has always worked out.

Apart from your guest houses, are there any other upcoming product cate­gories?

We are adding outdoor fur­niture to our range, as you can see at Vipp Salaca River.

And we are working on a new kitchen. Up to now, our kit­chens have been quite high-end. We are trying to do some­thing that is a little more demo­cratic to reach a wider audience.

Thanks for talking to us, Kasper. See you at the next Supper Club then!

Interview: The con­ver­sation was con­ducted by Jan Hamer and Ulrich Stefan Knoll

Photos: Por­trait photo © Pia Winther (Cover), Vipp Shelter © Anders Hviid (1 – 5), Vipp Loft © Anders Hviid (6 – 10), Vipp Pencil Case © Anders Hviid (11 ‑13), Todos Santos © Anders Hviid (14 – 19), Vipp Salaca River © Pia Winther (20 – 24)

Edi­torial sup­plement (April 2025): The Tunnel House in Tas­mania is now the 11th VIPP Guest House to be let.