Walk on cold Winters day in Sweden

Went for morning walk around where I grew up in Sweden. It is called Norrviken and is located north of Stockholm (twenty minutes train ride from central Stockholm). Even if that is about the same distance as I live outside London now, it is very different. I guess since Stockholm is not as big, you actually get further out in the country quicker.

About 10 minutes walk from my house where my dad still lives there is a nature reserve, with a lake and a forest and fields. It s great for walking, mountain biking, running and maybe some cross country skiing in winter if you are lucky.

The photos are showing kind of a wetland walk through reeds at the edges of the lake. It has got a simple timber walk way through it and you feel really good walking trough the reeds. It shows how simple landscape can work.

Vasa parken - Stockholm

When I went home to Sweden for an early Christmas, I took the opportunity to visit a park in central Stockholm. The park is called Vasa parken and has had some updating over the past years and there is still some work going on. What I knew before I went was that they have these very cool trampolines for kids to play on. I thought they looked great when I saw photos of them and I wasn't disappointed. They were great and we had to try them of course.

I thought maybe they would stand out to much and break up the traditional park too much. But I actually think they were great and the colour looked perfect on a very cold winters day. There some kids in quite different ages playing on them when we were there. The rest of the park is very traditional and very Swedish. It is surrounded by old beautiful houses. You could see that some parts have been done up, but there are also a lot of elements kept in the park, which retains the character of a very old park with a history.

I like the ice rink, with the seating platforms on one end. Which probably is used for football during the summer and spring. There were kids skating on it. It is all free and the kids just bring their own skates. That is something I used to do when I was growing up and I love the fact that you can still go out and do that. And in central Stockholm all for free. It really encourages kids to play outside, even if it is cold and dark outside. It is still safe as well.


I really like the fact that the park is so Swedish and that the character of the park has been kept through regeneration. If the park looked great on a cold winters day, I think it will look beautiful on a summers day.

Playing in photoshop

Matthew Williamson at the Design Museum

The second exhibition I saw at the design museum was the Matthew Williamson's. The exhibtion looked great. The colourfulness of his designs looked great suspended from the ceiling in the white museum. In terms of exhibition I didn't think it was my thing. I did find the colours and the patterns very cool, but part from that I didn't find it too interesting.

The text on the walls was the most interesting thing - where Matthew Williamson's design process was described and where you can read quotes from him. I liked how he says that ' combing the natural with the man made - the contrast between design, fabric and decoration is the strongest inspiration of all'.

Jean Prouve at the Design Museum

This is the 2nd Focus week this year. Took the chance today to go to the Design Museum to check out the Jean Prouve exhibition.

They say that Jean Prouve was the man who invented high-tech. He worked in architecture, but wasn't an architect. He was a designer and an engineer. He designed unique furniture and moved on to buildings. Some of the models on show are amazing. Some are surprisingly organic and ecological and feel very contemporary at the same time

This model is of a youth center proposal for Ermot done in 1967.

His use of material and inventive ideas make him inspiring. In a house he designed for his brother he had vents in the roof to naturally ventilate the house.

Model showing the structure of the Grenoble exhibition hall, done in aluminium and brass in 1968.

His sketches are cool and his furniture very nice. He designed a lot for schools, and government institutions. They got to have a very cool furniture in those days!

Jean Prouves sketches are very good. I love the way he has worked with line thickness to give his sketches some depth.

It was a nice exhibition and I took the chance to try to do some sketching of some of the models and structures. I found Jean Prouves work inspiring and he seemed like a designer with a systematic approach and order. Which is what I am in a way. It is good to see that you can be organised and a good designer at the same time. Since for me the go hand in hand.