The latest from Stockholm Furniture Fair 2024

A core part of Stockholm Design Week – the city’s wider event running from 5-11 February – guests can expect to see a blend of returning names and new faces at Stockholm Furniture Fair, with the latter including Danish manufacturers Niko June, ‘brutal yet sophisticated’ Vaarnii and the minimalist Wekino With. “The fair is a platform that is important both as a marketplace and a meeting place,” comments project manager for the event, Hanna Nova Beatrice. “It plays an extremely important role for Swedish industry.”

Fresh spaces

New Ventures will make its venue debut as an arena for young and progressive design brands. Here, visitors will find the diamond-shaped design bar The Surface Club, developed by Malmö-based design studio Lab La Bla; made up of waste materials, with wall panels derived from recycled milk cartons and sustainable flooring from Bolon.

Elsewhere, The Yellow Thread installation, designed by Färg & Blanche, will serve as the backdrop for the fair’s extensive seminar programme. Portraying council buildings in Brussels to mark the Swedish presidency of the EU in 2023, The Yellow Thread will be presented on behalf of the Swedish Institute and feature yellow arches to define the space and represent Nordic light. “Yellow is the most brilliant colour in the spectrum, capturing attention more than any other and symbolising joy, optimism, enlightenment and creativity,” says Emma Marga Blanche, one half of the Stockholm- based studio.

Scandi-agency Form Us With Love will offer a more formal meeting area with Prototypa, described as an industry-wide forum for creative challenges, thought-provoking ideas and honest voices in and around the prototyping process.

Food for thought

Setting the tone for the entire Fair, research-based design studio Formafantasma is 2024’s Guest of Honour and will create Stockholmsmässan’s Entrance Hall installation. Despite featuring furniture from Artek, lighting from Flos and textiles from Maharam, knowledge will form the basis of the ‘Reading Room’, in which visitors will be able to enjoy a calm space to sit and read books on ecology and reflect on the ideas that have powered Formafantasma’s distinguished work. “To work as a designer today goes way beyond thinking about the product,” says Andrea Trimarchi, who founded the studio in 2009 with business partner, Simone Farresin. “That is, of course, important, but it’s just as important to rethink the way we produce things.” Once Stockholm Furniture Fair has ended, the Reading Room’s books will be donated to design schools to continue insightful thoughts and discussion.

Watch this space to keep up with the latest from Stockholm Furniture Fair.

Find out more at stockholmfurniturefair.se