tham & videgard arkitekts: apartment at humlegarden, stockholm

refurbishment of an apartment at humlegården, stockholm image courtesy tham & videgard 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 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 position, 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 arkitekts

humlegården apartment floor plan image courtesy tham & videgard arkitekts

humlegården apartment exterior image courtesy tham & videgard arkitekts

project info:

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