Swedish design collaboration

WORDS: Alma Viviers reporting from Stockholm

Last night two Swedish design stalwarts, production house Offecct and starchitects Claesson Koivisto Rune, celebrated 15 years of collaboration.

During the atmospheric cocktail party at Offecct´s Stockholm showroom, the company’s CEO recalled how their partnership started when the architectural trio was fresh out of university. Each member of the Claesson Koivisto Rune team then proceeded to reflected on a project that has been memorable to them.

Märten Claesson recalled the brief to design a space-saving lounge chair for a hotel with confined rooms. Pal was the result. As Märten explains: “Pal is little like siblings, similar but different.” By simply flipping the seat of the chair to the become the backrest, the chair becomes a lounger.

Eero Koivisto remembered when Offecct tasked them with injecting more playfulness into the furniture collection. They designed the Flower Stool for the Offecct 2004 Stockholm Furniture Fair stand, never thinking that it would take off. The stand was decorated with about 30 of these stools. After the first night they started to notice that each night a few of them disappeared. “We though, well if people are stealing them, then we have certainly created a desirable object,” said Eero. The stool – made from cold foam with polyurethane surface –  is incredibly light and surprisingly easy to carry.

Rounding out the trio was Ola Rune. He retraced the many failed attempts at redesigning the facade of the Offecct factory in Tibro. After almost giving up they jokingly presented Offecct with the idea to create a facade from the plastic ends used on chair legs. The facade would be made from perforated stainless steel, and the plastic ends would be used almost like pixels to spell out the name of the company. Offecct loved the idea. It took a crew of ten three days and more than 16 000 white plastic ends to create the now icon facade.

One of the latest products created by the Claesson Koivisto Rune team for Offecct is the Nobis Table that was designed specifically for the Nobis Hotel in Stockholm. The firm also designed the hotel and its interior. 

For more information go to www.ckr.se / www.offecct.se