Studio Valkea

Studio Valkea is a project and a concept studio by Michelle Site and Milja Emilia. We met at DesignMarch in Reykjavík in 2015 and continue to explore the world together with our travels and collaborative projects. Our studio is where we experiment with research, design and sensory details discovered through shared curiosities, trips and our friendship.

In a time of digital omnipresence, we care very much about working in the physical world. Our work focuses on the human senses and material detail.

Michelle Site (US) is a conceptual designer and writer based in Stavanger, Norway. Her research-driven work explores design, poetry, psychology and natural materials. She earned her BSc Biology at Brown University and her MA Design at Iceland University of the Arts.

Milja Emilia Korpela (FIN) is a multidisciplinary graphic designer specialised in packaging and strategic brand design. After earning her BA at Lahti Institute of Design in Finland in 2014 and working a decade as a designer in cultures foreign to hers, she is now based in Paris.

The Soap Project

How can objects in our home let us experience new places? How can the everyday washing ritual and its objects be transformed with sensory play?

The Soap Project explores the material and narrative possibilities of cold process soap. It builds a world extracted from memory, imagination and field research. Our first collection, Then I dreamt of wild horses, takes inspiration from moments and memories of Icelandic bathing culture and our travels across the Southwest American desert.

Collections are thematic and each collection is composed of sets inspired by a particular world. The sets play with form and color as ways to curate mood in cleansing spaces and washing rituals.

Our debut collection was released in 2021.

Volume I




Our material world is a diving board for entering
emotional landscapes and dreams.

Words Michelle Site
Photography miljaemilia

We started The Soap Project with open questions about everyday rituals and conversations about design, craft and storytelling. We wanted to link the bathing cultures and cleansing rituals we loved – the saunas of Finland, the saltwater of Florida and the geothermal pools of Iceland.
What could an art and design approach to soap as a material be? It is important to us for design objects to embody a concept, provide thoughtful experiences, tell a story.

The Soap Project  ︎︎︎