Strömparterren in Stockholm opened as the city’s first public park in 1832, an extraordinary place in the Stockholm stream. With the opera house on one side and the royal castle on the other it´s still somewhat off centered. Much of its atmosphere is owed to the fact that it´s detached from city life, also causing it through the years to be abandoned and almost forgotten. In 2008 it was decided to restore the park and LOLA landscape architects won the competition for the park design. It took until 2012 for the project to be finished and we were asked to complete the park with two pavilions.
One café pavilion and one pavilion for technical utilities. The café pavilion has a basic kitchen and is meant to become an annex to the future restaurant under the vaults of passing Norrbro. The design concept works with the idea to strengthen the connection up to the bridge. The roofs are handled like the buildings fifth façade, shaped with equal attention as the facades you meet down in the park. Each roof has one window to collect daylight and spread light up to Norrbro after dawn.
Both roof and façade are painted with traditional linseed oil paint. Behind the wooden façade ribs the café has windows of extruded thermoplastic to light the workspace with daylight. The technical utilities building which has no use for windows, has mirroring surfaces in the same position, duplicating the floral splendor of the park.