Disclaimer:
I like to work with attention, and that has resulted in a text of 850 words. This will take the average reader about 4 minutes.

As a young boy, it was clear from an early age. I grew up in Heerhugowaard with my brother Gibran, the son of my father Gerard and mother Rita. At that time, Heerhugowaard was still a relatively small polder town in North Holland. Surrounded by farms, we played outside a lot and loved building treehouses. As a family, we often went to the forest or the beach. Winter, spring, summer, autumn – each season has its own charm. The smell of wet leaves in autumn, the cold, fresh winter air, the scent of spring with its new blooming season. Nature was so incredibly fascinating and impressive with all its quirks, it moved me deeply and, as a child, I felt a strong connection to it.

Making things with my hands, preferably as much as possible outdoors, was the core value I gravitated towards. Both my parents came from construction families, and many fathers and uncles of friends worked in the building trade. The step into construction felt natural and familiar. It’s in the blood, and deep down, I knew it. At the age of fifteen, I chose a construction apprenticeship and started my first part-time job in the trade. Those were great years, and I felt like a fish in water.

As you grow older, you start to develop further. I’m a curious person and often ask myself how and why? I don’t take things for granted. In construction, there wasn’t much room for these kinds of philosophical thoughts. “We do it this way because we’ve always done it this way” was the prevailing mindset, and that began to feel restrictive.

Depth, combined with craftsmanship, brought me to the Design Academy in Eindhoven. A whole new world opened up for me. What had seemed like a superficial craft world suddenly wasn’t superficial at all. In fact, the question "What if?" was often the starting point of every search. This was exactly what I was looking for.

In 2012, I graduated and started my own business: Roman Levi Interiors, design by identity. I design and create furniture based on the identity of the user. It was a shift from the rough building world to refined craftsmanship, with more depth in the questions of who and why. After a few years working within this framework, my questioning personality started to look for another way of thinking and working. The vessel was full, and the journey felt complete. I began to search for more. But what for?

Back to the core! My love for nature and craftsmanship is still close to me, and from here, I searched for more. Just as every season has its charm, so does life. In my life (so far), a season often lasts three to five years. You start seeing the world differently, and it reflects everything around you.

In 2022, I became a father for the first time to my son Nolan. I lived with my girlfriend Stephanie in an old school building at Nassauplein 10 in Alkmaar. It was a great place to live, but not ideal for starting a family. We moved to Amsterdam North, and soon our twins, Silas and Avélie, followed. Our apartment was on the 21st floor, overlooking Amsterdam North and the North Holland polder. They were beautiful years, but the apartment became too small for a family of five. I missed nature, the sea, and the forest—places I love, and places I want my children to experience. With a lot of luck, we found a lovely house in Bakkum, in the municipality of Castricum. Back to nature!

Fatherhood has made me a grateful person. Grateful for life and for the world in which we live. Fatherhood feels like a new phase that is exactly meant to be right now. Just like the first steps in construction, the first train to Eindhoven, starting a business, and now a family of five. Living from my heart feels natural to me, and it’s always led me to directions in life that felt right at that time.

Now, it’s time for a new search in my work. Though, work—it never really feels like work. Creating is something you do because you feel you must. My fascination with nature and working with craftsmanship brings me to a new season: Harmony ‘Form follows nature.’ In my new series of furniture, I focus on showing gratitude for nature. I want to do this by crafting delicate frames that follow the contours of natural forms. These frames place materials from nature on a pedestal, rather than us, as humans, trying to impose our will on nature. It’s a form of gratitude, and I hope to show the beauty of nature to those who use my furniture.

Thank you for your attention.

Kind regards,

Roman Levi Borst