In perfect isolation

Sitting at a table on the sun-bleached deck outside her home on the Norwegian island of Asmaløy, designer Ragnhild Wik is the picture of contentment. Her happy demeanour says it all, but it wasn’t always so – once she was a harried commuter in metropolitan Oslo. “For 14 years I worked in fashion design. My friend Linda Walsøe, whom I have known since we were students, and I would fantasise about starting our own business. Then the time was finally right, and we decided to create a range of porcelain that captured the style and nature of Norway.” When the pair launched Wik & Walsøe in 2007, it took only three years for them to become established as an international brand. But Wik found that she was still spending too long commuting from Oslo to the studio 60 miles south in Kråkerøy, so in 2009 with husband Vegard Øie and their son Lauritz, she set about finding a home in the area, part of a national park dominated by huge boulders sculpted smooth during the Ice Age... View interior feature

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Wearing White and Gold for Christmas

With the cold, but oh so festive season approaching, the owner of this snow-white apartment in Oslo is wishing all her beloved friends a very merry Christmas. However, she's sending neither Rudolf nor Santa a jolly rsvp card this year. Instead, any child in the neighbourhood or young family members may stop by for an improvised Christmas workshop or some homemade cookies at her table. Just about a year ago, Oddfrid, a young designer of cool costumes and accessories for films and theatre in Norway, found herself the owner of a slightly tired and well-worn apartment in the Oslo neighbourhood Adamstuen, painted in various shades of ice-cream. She set out to give the place a Christmas present the likes it had never seen before. Almost single-handedly, she has refurbished this bright and classic apartment so that now it almost seems like an extension of her; with a pure and gentle background allowing for cool vintage finds and stylish details. Given that her daytime job is as a designer and artist, the renovation of the apartment has just been one more outlet for her creativity and distinct style... view feature
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Three Chords and the Truth

This phrase, coined as it was by a country musician, and later appropriated by the punk-scene is anything but the equivalent of simplicity as many take it to mean. On the contrary, it requires hard work, the ability to improvise, historical knowledge, and a whole bunch of will-power. It just looks and sounds simple. Like a good architect’s work. Walking from cabin to cabin between the rock-formations, and from room to room, it dawns on us that what the owners have created here isn’t just an updated version of the “summer-cabin”, but an alternate cabin-universe altogether... view feature Pin It Now!