refurbishment of an apartment at humlegården, stockholm. oversized and multicoloured parquet floors and walls, 2008
image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts
all photos © åke e:son lindman

departing from the traditional swedish interior use of colour and patterns, developed by artists
and architects like carl larsson and josef frank, this apartment also relates directly to the setting
at the park humlegården where the greenery outside changes with the season. from winter
grey and black, to summertime bright and deep green, to orange, red and yellow in autumn.

tham & videgard hansson arkitekts first starting point was to reestablish the well crafted quality
of the once high-class turn of the century apartment (late jugend / art nouveau 1800/1900)
that had been totally altered, and even for some time transformed into a hotel, leaving very few
traces of the original.

they used patterns and colour to order space in previous projects that the occupants had seen.
the overlapping colours transform the layout of the apartment and add a new structure of spaces
linked to each other across the original plan. the parquet floor also function as a uniting system
that offer design possibilities. once they had set up colours in different shades, they developed
each room in relation to the others, every piece of parquet was defined to fit into the right postion,
there was no random factor in the construction process.

white furniture: when it was all rendered in white, the physical design of each piece of furniture
is highlighted. at the same time it made it possible to create a coherent ensemble including pieces
from very different designers and times.

one-offs: in this apartment they used the almost round-table, the sweden dining table,
the carrara hexagon table, the triangular childrens table, and the white hexagon museum
bench in the entrance, originally designed for the kalmar museum of art.


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


humlegården apartment floor plan
image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts


humlegården apartment exterior
image courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekts

general info
project name: humlegården apartment
architects: tham & videgård hansson arkitekter / bolle tham and martin videgård hansson.
collaborators: tove belfrage, helene amundsen, johan björkholm, karolina nyström
dates: project 2006-2007, construction 2007-2008.
address: engelbrektsgatan, stockholm, sweden
client: undisclosed.
photographer: åke e:son lindman