About

About Atelier. Senseware

A house built for pigment: colour is a material, not a surface.

Atelier. Senseware is a paint and finishes studio in Anping, Tainan, founded in December 2020, and the sole authorised distributor of Denmark's St. Leo Interiors in Taiwan. We supply mineral paint, colour consultation and application planning, and bring in textiles, stoneware, glass and rugs from a few Nordic brands.

The name

Senseware joins two words, sense and ware: the senses, and the objects we live with. We believe the feel of a space comes from its materials: the minerals in a wall, the grain of linen, wheel-thrown clay. Colour is not only something you see. You can touch it, and it changes with the light.

The founder

Atelier. Senseware was founded by Sian Li.

Sian's first interest was architecture. His father made architectural models, and interiors and buildings were everyday conversation at home. He went on to an MA in Fashion Design at Manchester School of Art, yet his research kept returning to space: the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, asymmetry and imperfect geometry, and how a room can move the people inside it. He visited David Chipperfield's Hepworth Wakefield and stepped into James Turrell's Skyspace at Yorkshire Sculpture Park to watch natural light fall across a wall.

In those years in the UK he also saw something clearly: most of Taiwan's garment industry had moved abroad, and he could not see a future for himself in fashion. So he turned his research from clothing to space and emotion.

In his research notes he wrote that he cared less about beauty built from furniture and objects, and more about beauty that comes from the room itself.

The answer he found was the wall. In December 2020 Sian founded Atelier. Senseware in Anping, Tainan, starting from the colour and texture of a single wall.

Why St. Leo

Sian's path to St. Leo began while he was studying in the UK. Kinfolk magazine was everywhere then, on the table of almost every minimal café, writing about slow living and less but better, while everyone talked about Nordic furniture. Sian believed it was better to go and see for himself than to imagine a place through other people's words, so he went to Copenhagen.

The question he asked himself was simple: having spent so much to study abroad, which experience was worth coming back to, and worth bringing home to Taiwan?

When the pandemic hit in 2020 and countries locked down, Taiwan was getting international attention for its mask production. Sian used that moment to find the courage to contact the cities and brands he loved. Through friends in the UK interior architecture world, he let St. Leo know that he wanted more than a distribution deal: he wanted to build a brand that stands for sustainability and quality. That same year, Atelier. Senseware became St. Leo's sole authorised distributor in Taiwan.

Only later did Sian realise how connected the path had been. In 2019, Kinfolk co-founder Nathan Williams was creative director of The Audo in Copenhagen (now Audo House), and together with Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects and St. Leo he developed 10 bespoke Dolomite Plaster colours for its walls. St. Leo's Dolomite Plaster collection was unveiled there. The Kinfolk aesthetic that had drawn him in found its way to Tainan in another form.

St. Leo is led by its CEO, Martin Kornbek Hansen. Before St. Leo, he founded the Danish design brand &Tradition in 2010, starting by buying the production rights to Verner Panton's Flowerpot lamp and building a house where design classics and new work sit side by side, which he led for more than a decade. He grew up around design and manufacturing.

It taught Sian something lasting. Copenhagen is small, yet its brands often share resources and lift one another. Design there does not stop at furniture. It works more like a complete aesthetic system, in which designers and makers from different fields create new lines for Denmark's enduring brands. St. Leo was born this way: the experience of a furniture house, an architect's colours and the eye of Kinfolk, finally settling on a wall.

St. Leo paints are made from minerals, water-based and low in VOC. Marble Paint and Dolomite Plaster contain 1 g/L of VOC, 3% of the EU limit.

With borders closed through the pandemic years, this work still felt like travelling the world, one beautiful space after another.

How we work

A wall starts with a conversation.

  1. 01 Reading colourLight, scale, materials and how the space is used. We never match colour on a screen.
  2. 02 Sample testingWe check against official St. Leo samples and, where needed, order a 100 ml wet sample to paint on site and watch under different light over three days.
  3. 03 Application planNumber of coats and drying times, applied by professional painters we trust.
  4. 04 AftercareA one-year warranty, and we keep a record of your colours for future touch-ups.

Studio consultations are 60 minutes and free. On-site consultations are 90 minutes, NT$4,500. You can also estimate paint and cost first with our coverage calculator.

Projects

From cafés in Tainan to a guesthouse in Chiayi and homes in Taipei, Atelier. Senseware has finished more than 40 spaces in Taiwan, including here Kyoto Tainan, La Petite Fleur Boulangerie, ivette café, 寓 apāto and Hōru Coffee & Lounge. Each one is documented on our Projects page, with the paints and colours used.

Brands we bring in

Visit the studio

The studio is at No. 196, Jianping 7th St., Anping District, Tainan. Here you can see the full St. Leo sample range in real light, from morning to late afternoon.