Smalltown easy chair

Hard-edged and technoid or soft and round – formally furniture and fashion are certainly not so far apart from each other.

They’re back in fashion – small, light armchairs with a wooden or tubular steel frame. In the 1950s and 1960s they came to fame as “easy chairs”; now they’ve morphed into “lounge chairs”. For the office or the home.

Stockholm Design Week revealed that noise reduction can look good and smartphones are also changing our furniture. But just what is behind “New Nordic”?

News from the North? Yes, indeed! Even though the makers of the Stockholm Furniture Fair have completely revised the hall layout we managed to glimpse the hottest innovations – here are the 12 most exciting ones.

Claesson Koivisto Rune’s Mårten Claesson explains why Swedes found the transition to open offices so easy and why you shouldn’t turn a lawyer’s office into a playground. An interview by Martina Metzner

Today amateur gardeners are referred to as urban gardeners. The new generation of urban nature lovers has no need for simple flower pots; multifunctional is the name of the game!

The architects and designers at Claesson Koivisto Rune in Stockholm designed the interior of the Nobis Hotel in Stockholm.

Luca Nichetto is one of the few Italian designers in the upcoming generation. Sandra Hofmeister talked to him about the life and death of his furniture, about new perspectives in Scandinavia and about the meaning and meaninglessness of national borders in design.