Apt. renovation Roslagsgatan | Matteo Foresti

In the heart of Stockholm, in a building from 1914, the apartment is facing the secular trees of the Norra Real College. More than a hundred years later many awkward modifications along time destroyed the beauty of this apartment.The elegant soul of this old building vanished from the now chaotic layout. The challenge is about bringing all modern uses, bathrooms, sauna, built-in kitchen, re-inventing the nobility of the architecture of that time. It obliges us to rethink deeply the layout of the apartment. Private rooms, such as bedrooms and bathrooms are preferred facing the peaceful interior courtyard of the building on its northern side. Public spaces are preferred facing the main street and the adjacent garden on the southern view. We decided to knock down some division walls in order to create a sequence of three distincts spaces, opened on one another, but still clearly identifiable, the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. Inheriting from the traditional layout of the noble apartments of that era an elliptic entrance hall is introduced. Bedrooms, bathrooms, dining room, living-room have in common this abstract space where a welcoming fireplace lays since 1914. Spaces become abstract, ornaments are replaced by a strong geometrical game of volume intersections and minimalistic details.
Grey porcelain tiles in the public rooms, warm grey painting on the interior walls, thick grey carpet in the bedrooms. This tipically Swedish monochromatic atmosphere is broken by only two elements : the kitchen island in Nero Marquina and the master bathroom cladded with dark tiles. This room, conceived as a cutout from the master bedroom has its own atmosphere. Soft shadows are projected on the fogged glass, through the vail of curtains, on the clear geometries. Bringing a strong contrast with the abstract tones of the rest of the apartment, they inherited the nobility of the materials originally used in such buildings, creating a simple, elegant and calm atmosphere in the middle of the vibrant energy of central Stockholm.