Swedish producer Nola has become known for brining bold colors and playful designs to public spaces.
Thinking and doing things differently is part of Nola’s DNA, founded the 1960’s, the company’s initial niche was designing playground equipment for disabled children. Since the 1980’s Nola has mainly focused on outdoor furnishings for public spaces and have become known for incorporating bold colors into their designs. In recent years a number of innovative designers and studios has been attached to projects bringing unusual furnishing solutions to public space. For example Peg by French-Swedish designer Mathieu Gustafsson we first saw at SFF2015 in February. It’s a freestanding seating system with plastic seats pegged in a wood beam. Simple, flexible and playful. Equally playful is Kristoffer Fagerström and Marcus Abrahamsson’s Pylon bench, it’s essentially a traditional bench with an unusual but simple and self-explanatory construction, two layers of multicolored and glued pine slats resting on a twin steel base. Plymå by Mattias Stenberg on the other hand, is a much more subtle design. The indoor version of Plymå is made out of cushion shaped ash wood and terrazzo stone on a steel base. The construction has a organic look and the smooth finish of the hard wood gives it a surprisingly soft feel.
Other projects has taken social aspects of public space into consideration like Sunday by Spanish Emiliana Design Studio. Sunday is an open ended design, a multi- functional outdoor furniture that facilitates social interaction and activities. The design is simple enough, oak slats on a steel frame forming a continuous surface in different levels. Another interesting project Johan Kauppi and Bertil Harström’s Harads collection, particularly the Box – a large freestanding pine structure, semi-closed or semi-open depending on your outlook on life, that primarily functions as shelter and/or shade. The Box defines it’s own almost monolithic presence as both part of and a part from it’s surroundings.
Plenty of other prolific designers have been attached to Nola’s projects, a quick pick of the litter includes Monica Förster, CKR, Note, Björn Dahlström, Folkform and Shane Schneck.