editor’s note

Every year, January comes with a lot of expectation. New goals. New energy. New you.

But winter hasn’t finished its work yet.

Across many cultures, the new year doesn’t begin in January at all — some start in February, others in March, aligned with the return of light, warmth, and growth. We’ve largely forgotten that renewal doesn’t happen on command. Change doesn’t happen overnight, from one day to the next, because of the date on the calendar. This moment, in deep winter, is not meant for reinvention. It’s meant for replenishing.

This January issue of the hinter planet is an invitation to release the rush to start a new version of yourself, and let winter be what it is.

what we’re reading

Wintering

This feels like required reading for January.

Wintering reframes winter, literally and metaphorically, as a necessary season of retreat, repair, and conservation. Katherine May writes against the idea that productivity or optimism should be constant. It’s a reminder that rest isn’t a failure of momentum; it’s part of survival.

Traversal

Maria Popova has long written about cyclical time, nature’s intelligence, and the danger of flattening life into a linear progress. Her work often returns to the idea that growth happens underground, unseen. Traversal is a meditation on moving through uncertainty without rushing toward answers. Written as a series of poetic reflections, it explores how we carry ourselves through transitions — emotional, creative, existential — when clarity hasn’t yet arrived. it honors the in-between.The waiting. The work happening beneath the surface. A perfect companion for deep winter.

what we’re watching

Paterson

A film about routine, attention, and the dignity of ordinary days.
Nothing much “happens”…and that’s the beauty of it. Paterson feels like winter: repetitive, gentle, and deeply present. Plus, if you’re an Adam Driver fan like we are, he’s the lead.

Columbus

Stillness, architecture, waiting. Columbus moves slowly, leaving space for pauses and unsaid things. It’s a film about emotional suspension, about staying with what is, instead of rushing toward resolution. Perfect viewing for this moment of the year.

what we’re listening to

Sufjan Stevens

Carrie & Lowell

Quiet, restrained, deeply human.This album is about grief and tenderness without dramatizing either. It feels like true winter music. Best listened to slowly. Preferably while walking, or doing nothing at all.

art that understands winter

Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint created her most significant work long before it was understood or recognized; guided by intuition, spirituality, and an internal timeline rather than external validation.

Her work feels deeply aligned with winter energy: creation before visibility, meaning before recognition. A reminder that beginnings don’t always announce themselves.

a lunar note

Not all new years begin in January. The Lunar New Year arrives in February.
Nowruz, the Persian New Year, begins in March — aligned with the equinox.
Many Indigenous calendars mark renewal with the return of light, rather than the depth of winter.

These systems understand something we often forget: January is not the start. It’s the middle.

winter travel, two ways

Winter doesn’t have to mean the same thing everywhere.

deep winter

There’s something so satisfying about leaning fully into winter.
Snow, silence, early nights, little to no plans.

Browse spaces ideal for a quiet winter getaway

toward warmth:

Mexico

Tucked into the heart of Oaxaca de Juárez, Casa de ELLA offers a winter retreat that moves in the opposite direction of cold and urgency. Built with elemental Oaxacan materials, the space feels earthen and intimate — a place where warmth comes from texture, ritual, and shared moments rather than spectacle.

Winter here is lived slowly: lingering meals, mezcal poured, conversations that stretch into the evening. The home extends the world of mezcal maker De ELLA as a lived environment, filled with handcrafted clay objects and subtle invitations to connect, taste, and stay present. A reminder that winter travel doesn’t always mean snow; sometimes it means leaning into warmth, tactility, and human connection.

Madeira

The island softens the season: green landscapes instead of snow, ocean air instead of sharp cold. Winter here feels expansive rather than constricting; an invitation to slow without retreating inward completely.

Set above the Atlantic, Casa da Vargem’s architecture is quiet and grounded, opening outward to sea and sky, encouraging slow, quiet days.

This is a stay designed for presence — for reading, cooking, watching the sunset. Winter here offers space to settle, breathe, and recalibrate at a gentler pace.

Surrounded by gardens and farmland, Quinta da Saraiva feels deeply rooted in Madeira’s slower pace. Winter days here are shaped by nature: picking bananas right off the trees, noticing light, sharing meals made from what’s growing nearby. A place where winter is lived through connection and time spent close to the land.

These trips show how winter travel can take different forms, shaped by place and pace rather than by the idea that January needs to be a beginning.

closing thought

January doesn’t have to be a beginning. Winter is still present, and not everything needs to move forward yet.

community question

Finish this sentence and hit reply… no overthinking:

This January, I’m giving myself permission to ______.

The future is bright.

Any thoughts provoked? Ideas sparked? Any corners of the internet worth sharing? Join the conversation and drop a comment below.

Want to find us in other galaxies?

⍋ hinter.com

⍋ Instagram

Interested in being one of our Artists in Residence? Apply here.

November has a way of grounding us. Softer and less frequent light, cooler air…life moves at a different pace. There’s more time to think, to notice, to be where we are.

This time of year is about slowing down before the rush of the season ahead. A calmer morning, a meal cooked from what’s in season, a walk before the day starts. Small things that make us feel connected again.

As the world outside shifts, we do too. This issue is about that change. About depth as something we build through attention; how we spend our time, what we bring into our spaces, and the way we move through the months ahead.

grounding through nature

Nature recalibrates us. Studies show that time spent outdoors lowers cortisol, improves focus, and even enhances creativity. But what’s interesting isn’t only why this happens, it’s how our environments mirror those effects indoors.

Designers and architects are beginning to study what’s called biophilic design, a philosophy that reintroduces natural elements into built environments. Think organic shapes, natural light, and materials like stone and wood that age and shift with time. Spaces that mimic the rhythms of nature (subtle changes in temperature, light, or sound) remind us that architecture is a living dialogue with the environment. These spaces actually support nervous system balance, helping us rest more deeply and think more clearly.

And when we spend time in places built with that in mind, something inside us slows down too. Our breath deepens. Our attention softens. The space itself seems to teach us how to rest.

We’ve gathered a few spaces that embody this philosophy, like cabins surrounded by forest, homes that open directly to the water, and quiet retreats designed to help you reconnect with what’s real. These are places where design and nature move together, where you can feel the landscape in every material, every moment.

browse nature-immersed stays on ddriftt

yuki’s prelude

film by david thuman, captured at hinterhouse

David Thuman’s short film, Yuki’s Prelude, follows a fleeting moment in time: the arrival of Yukimushi, or snow bugs, are tiny creatures that appear just before the first snowfall in Japan.

David hadn’t planned the story; the forest offered it to him. The result is a quiet reflection on how nature and architecture move together; how stillness, temperature, and texture can shape emotion as deeply as light or sound. Through his lens, hinterhouse becomes less a building and more a living organism, breathing through the seasons.

In a world that often rushes forward, Yuki’s Prelude reminds us that depth is found in observation, in the seconds before change, in the subtle signs that a new season has begun.

Inner Harmony: A Collaboration with Joy Kinna

Last year, artist Joy Kinna spent time moving through our Tremblant spaces — noticing how the light shifted across the walls at hinterhaven, how the forest framed each window at hintercabin x, how stillness seemed to settle into the architecture itself at hinterhouse. She carried those impressions back to her studio on Vancouver Island, where they became the foundation for Inner Harmony.

The piece reflects what we think good design makes possible: softness, balance, and an invitation to slow down. It felt like a natural fit for our homes, so we collaborated with Joy to bring Inner Harmony into the hinter spaces. The prints now live across our properties, blending into wood, concrete, and shadow.

The print officially released on October 16, 2025, and is now available through Joy’s shop. What we love most about this collaboration is how seamlessly the work speaks to our spaces. It shifts a room just enough to make you pause — the kind of pause that feels right for this season.

design spotlight: studio KO

Based between Paris and Marrakech, Studio KO approaches architecture as a dialogue with the landscape. Founded by Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty, their work has a way of feeling inevitable, like it belongs exactly where it stands. Materials are local. Forms are simple. Every detail is deliberate.

Their spaces are quiet, but not minimal for minimalism’s sake. They use texture, shadow, and natural materials to create buildings that feel alive to their surroundings. The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech is one example; a structure that mirrors the colours and rhythm of the desert around it.

Even their website feels like an extension of their architecture: slow, tactile, and intentional. It’s designed for exploration. You move through it the way you’d move through one of their buildings: with attention.

Studio KO’s work is a reminder that thoughtful design listens—to material, to place, and to time.

a pause in the day

There’s something so centering about taking a few minutes to savor what’s in front of you; the first sip, the first sound, the first moment of quiet. These small rituals might not look like much, but they’re often what keep us anchored.

For some, it’s a slow coffee ritual. At hinterhouse, we’ve been using the AnZa coffee machine; a sculptural object built from concrete and steel, designed as much for presence as for function. It’s coffee as craft: The process is unhurried, deliberate, and deeply satisfying. It’s available during your stay at hinterhouse for a limited time.

For others, it’s a cup of ceremonial organic matcha from Aikenka, matcha we have been sipping for years now. Whisked by hand, we like to savor it for its earthy calm in a ceramic cup. The process is tactile — watching the powder dissolve, the foam rise, the steam lift. It’s a daily practice in focus and calm, a reminder that beauty lives in repetition.

And as the day ends, when we’re in the mood for a drink, it’s Gin Sul — bright and herbal with notes of lemon peel and rosemary. Best when sipped as the light fades and the air cools; a small reminder that the day doesn’t need to end in a rush.

No matter which ritual speaks to you, the intention is the same: to pause long enough to notice.

→ slow down, sip slowly, stay awhile.

the light we live in

Light changes how we feel. In fall, when daylight shortens, the tone of light softens too. The sun sits lower in the sky, filtering through trees and windows in a deeper amber. It invites stillness.

At hinterhaven, photographer Luca Marra captured this transition; the way light bends through glass and reflects on wood.

The same philosophy runs through the lamps designed by Stamatios Fragos. His handcrafted pieces, inspired by Greco-Roman columns, create atmosphere. The warmth they cast echoes the glow of early evening; light that asks you to slow down, to stay a little longer.

Studies show that warm light helps regulate our circadian rhythm and calm the nervous system. It’s nature’s reminder that even light has a rhythm; and we do better when we follow it.

nancy guignard x hinter

Following Nancy’s stay at shadow lakehouse, she’s working on something special for her shop. For now, here’s a glimpse at her photography featured at hinterhouse. Stay tuned, and take a look at her work during your stay.

community question

What practices help you turn inward and reconnect with yourself as the season deepens?

It could be journaling, pottery, evening walks, cooking slow meals, time offline, or something else entirely. Reply to our Substack or send us a message on Instagram. We’ll share a selection of responses in next month’s issue, so the hinter planet can reflect not only the corners of the internet we’re discovering, but also what this community is experiencing and creating.

closing thought: returning to the roots

Depth Season is about reconnecting with yourself and the world. Paying attention again. Letting the noise fade long enough to notice what matters.

Maybe that’s the point of all this: to remember that grounding isn’t something we do once a year. It’s something we return to, again and again.

This month, notice what pulls you back to your center. The light in your home at dusk. The sound of a bamboo whisk frothing a bowl of matcha. The small rituals that remind you that you’re here, and that being here is enough.

The future is bright.

Any thoughts provoked? Ideas sparked? Any corners of the internet worth sharing? Join the conversation and drop a comment below.

Want to find us in other galaxies?

⍋ hinter.com

⍋ Instagram

Interested in being one of our Artists in Residence? Apply here.

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In this edition of The hinter Planet, we dive into the harmonious world of music, explore the art of slow travel, and uncover unique alternatives to forest bathing and slow eating. Celebrate the beauty of mindful living with us and discover new ways to savor life’s simple pleasures.

The Healing Power of Sound

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issue 009

After a short hiatus, we come back with another edition of the hinter planet. Our hands were full opening new spaces and working on new partnerships for the new year. In this issue, we explore the new spaces and our obsession with Maison de Soma (the best food experience we've found in a long time in Quebec). We cover the power of music and ho…

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