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    Familien Kvistad brings colour to 1950s house in Oslo

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    Vibrantly coloured tiles and textiles feature in this house renovation in Oslo, Norway, designed by locally based duo Familien Kvistad.

    The Yellow House in the Apple Garden is a 1950s house in Oslo’s Voldsløkka area, home to a family of four and their cat, “the rambunctious Caspian”.
    Familien Kvistad has renovated a Oslo homeFamilien Kvistad founders, married couple Astrid and Ziemowit Kvistad, have completely remodelled the interior using a palette that also includes solid ash joinery and lightly speckled terrazzo surfaces.
    “When they bought the house, the family envisioned painting some walls, moving the kitchen and building two new bathrooms,” the pair told Dezeen. “Over time, things naturally escalated, resulting in a complete change of layout, roof windows, new insulation, siding… absolutely everything was replaced.”
    The kitchen features solid ash cabinetsThe three-storey house has an enviable setting in a large garden filled with fruit trees. It was this that primarily attracted the owners, rather than the building itself.

    “The house was relatively old, not architecturally distinctive and outdated inside on all levels,” said the designers.
    The house was originally built in the 1950sHowever, shortly after they bought the property, the council enforced new conservation zone restrictions that made it impossible to alter the building’s exterior in any way.
    The task for Astrid and Ziemowit was to modernise the house without changing or extending its structure.

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    “This is obviously a costly project; it would have been cheaper to build a new house,” they explained.
    “However, the outer structure had to remain.”
    A terrazzo floor and ochre sofa are installed in the conservatoryThe renovation removed many of the old internal partitions, creating a more open layout. This gives the ground floor a broken-plan feel, made up of various separate but connected living and dining spaces.
    The old loft was also removed and replaced with small mezzanines, revealing the sloping roof beams and increasing the ceiling height in the first-floor bedrooms and bathroom to up to four metres.
    Wooden ceiling joists are exposed throughoutThe colour scheme was based on “earthy shades” of the owners’ favourite colours.
    On the ground floor, this resulted in a feature fireplace clad in mustard-yellow Kaufmann tiles, a lounge sofa upholstered in a plum-coloured Kvadrat textile and a storage bench topped by forest-green cushions.
    A storage bench topped with green cushions lines the main living spaceAn abundance of wood brings balance to this bold palette, with Douglas fir flooring from Dinesen and solid ash kitchen cabinets matching the exposed ceiling joists.
    This level also includes a sunken conservatory featuring large plants, a terrazzo floor, an ochre-toned sofa and electric-blue cushions. On the wall, an expressive painting displays similar colours.
    Custom-designed wall carpets adorn the primary bedroom”During the renovation, the family sold most of what they already owned,” said Astrid and Ziemowit. “This meant that all the furniture was purchased new.”
    “However, they did have some art from before,” they added. “Much to our delight, they fit perfectly into both the colour palette and the style.”
    In one of the children’s rooms, a staircase doubles as a shelving unitUpstairs, the primary bedroom features a pair of tufted wall carpets designed and made by Familien Kvistad, depicting abstract landscapes.
    One of the two children’s bedrooms features a playful storage unit that doubles as a staircase, while the other has a ladder to provide access to the mezzanine loft above.
    The family bathroom combines green tones with terrazzoThe bathroom has a more mellow character, combining terrazzo sanitaryware with calming green tones. The basement floor mainly serves as a utility area, although it does include an extra bathroom and a living room that doubles as a guest bedroom.
    Other recently completed homes in Norway include a “house of offcuts” by Kolman Boye Architects and a villa on piloti by Saunders Architecture.
    The photography is by Magnus Berger Nordstrand.

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      Mixed Seats aims to show “what a chair could be”

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      Designer Ali Shah Gallefoss invited 15 creatives to design their own interpretation of a chair that is suitable for a public space, all of which were presented as a recent exhibition in Oslo, Norway.

      Called Mixed Seats, the exhibition was curated by Shah Gallefoss and exhibition platform Pyton.
      Mixed Seats featured a series of concrete chairs including one by Henrik ØdegaardIt featured an installation of concrete chairs from Norwegian creatives including designers Henrik Ødegaard and Maja Pauline Bang Haugsgjerd, which were arranged in a cluster outside at a square next to Oslobukta shopping centre.
      The project stemmed from Pyton inviting the participants to a dinner party for which they were asked to design and bring their own chairs.
      Tron Meyer designed a blue chair while Jonas Løland made a stoolArchitect, designer and artist Tron Meyer created a textured blue seat with a chunky backrest while architect Jonas Løland offered a sandy-hued stool with three-pronged legs.

      “The chairs are individual suggestions for what a chair could be,” Shah Gallefoss told Dezeen.
      “They’re fun, bold, weird, serious, and playful, just like the group of individuals that made them.”
      Maja Pauline Bang Haugsgjerd created a swirling stoolWhile the creatives were free to add additional materials to their chairs, they were instructed to use concrete as their base material. The furniture was made at a collective workshop held in Drammen.
      Some of the offerings feature colour while others were kept simple, such as an ambiguous, rough concrete stool in the shape of a star or flower by designer Christoph Boulmer.
      Spindly wooden legs make up Kevin Kurang’s abstract stool”The variation in shapes and sizes made an appealing composition,” reflected Shah Gallefoss.
      “When they arrived at the square at Oslobukta they looked like small ants, with the huge Munch museum in the background.”
      Christoph Boulmer designed a flower-shaped chairShah Gallefoss himself contributed a chair design to the exhibition with a squat concrete seat attached to a sculptural metal backrest.
      After the exhibition was dismantled, the curator explained that each of the chairs has travelled to a new location to be repurposed in various ways.
      Shah Gallefoss contributed his own design to the exhibitionIndustrial designer Falke Svatun created seating made from two abstract cylindrical concrete components that has now been placed in Oslo’s Sentralen restaurant while product designer Bjørn van de Berg’s stool featured at Stockholm Design Week.
      “It is [often said] that Norwegians don’t like to sit next to another person on the bus,” joked Shah Gallefoss.
      “But the majority of outdoor furniture [created] is benches that invite people to sit down and disturb your peace and quiet. That made me think about personal space in a public setting.”

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      As well as exploring suitable seating for public spaces, another key objective of Mixed Seats was to showcase and encourage multidisciplinary creativity across Norway, according to Shah Gallefoss.
      “I hope that by introducing fifteen creatives [to each other], the exhibition will plant a seed that will grow and strengthen collaborative efforts between the different disciplines, and in the end, build a stronger design industry,” he concluded.
      Two cylindrical components make up Falke Svatun’s chairOther recent chair designs include a chubby furniture collection by Holloway Li and Uma Objects that was presented at London Design Festival and a chair made of plastic rubbish by design studio Space Available and DJ Peggy Gou.
      Mixed Seats was on display as part of Oslo Runway in Norway, which took place from 23 to 28 August in Oslo, Norway. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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