Daniel Heckscher’s Stochkolm ApartmentIn the summer of 2014,...

Daniel Heckscher’s Stochkolm Apartment

In the summer of 2014, Daniel Heckscher began renovating what was essentially a white box, taking an inventive, playful approach, including some input from his six-year-old son, Otis, and four-year-old daughter, India. “This project was like a workshop where I could try out ideas and materials.” In a way, that open, improvisational quality reflects Heckscher’s path as a designer. He didn’t fall into the profession immediately. With a background in economics, there was a time he thought he’d “end up like a Wall Street guy, doing finance. But I stayed clear of that, which in the end, turned out to be a wise choice.” It wasn’t until he was close to 30 that he started studying interior and spatial design formally…

With this space, Heckscher changed what he could while making other constraints work for him. The apartment is in a “quite ugly building from 1988,” he says. “It has this pinkish-orange façade that was very common at the time in Sweden… it’s not the height of Swedish architecture, 1988. I was thinking, how do I deal with this exterior color, because it’s going to be present the whole time in the living room and kitchen area.” He decided to bring it into the design, using a similar shade for those rooms, along with a super-saturated, atmospheric blue he’d used in his previous home. That continuity was important to him. Heckscher moved here after a divorce, “so this was a fresh start,” he says. But along with the new, he wanted to incorporate some familiar elements to provide a sense of security for his kids.

originally posted on Sight Unseen ** #Design on Cross Connect Mag