Note Design Studio’s Stunning New Art Installation

A new subway linking central Stockholm with the neighboring Nacka area is offering more than additional infrastructure to the dynamic city. The municipal government decided to celebrate the high-profile project with accompanying public art installations. Note Design Studio, a Stockholm-based multidisciplinary firm and the designers behind Vibia’s delicate Musa collection, was one of the three creative collaborators.

 

 

Their piece, entitled Waiting Windows, represented a departure for the firm. “This is the first time Note has been asked to do a site-specific piece of art,” says interior architect and partner Daniel Hecksher. “It was a little daunting at first, as we’re so used to creating architecture, products, or interiors which have an underlying functional aspect as well as an aesthetic point of view to balance.”

 

 

Note was tasked with enriching the Sickla subway stop and their ideas crystalized around the literal and abstract concept of waiting—waiting for a specific train as well as waiting for the subway construction to be completed. “Waiting is a poetic frame of mind,” says Charlotte Ackemar, Note’s product designer. “We have to do it and if you allow yourself to actively occupy that moment rather than be passive, then it becomes something else altogether.”

 

 

The main installation of Waiting Windows is located near the subway entrance outside Nacka’s City Hall on a small, wooded traffic island. It features a series of large, rectangular stainless steel shapes—windows—in varying sizes, which together form a gentle curve that recalls many of Stockholm’s subway stations.

 

 

During the day, the polished surfaces reflect the bucolic surroundings and beckons people to pass through and interact with the installation. At night, the top of each window is illuminated from within, casting an ethereal glow. A single window positioned at a smaller site nearby points towards the main installation.

 

 

Photos: Nacka Väntansfönster