A snowtopped landscape at Stockholm Design Week showcases the beauty of vinyl flooring

After the success of last year’s ‘The Lookout’ installation at Stockholm Furniture Fair, global flooring giant Tarkett and multidisciplinary Swedish design practice Note Design Studio have joined forces once again. This year they have chosen a venue in the heart of the city, on a 13th-floor rooftop with 360° panoramic views, and transformed the vast indoor-outdoors space into a poetic and immersive snow-covered landscape of different shapes made out of Tarkett’s iQ vinyl flooring ranges in various – and sometimes shimmering – hues of white and grey.
‘Snowtopped’, as the installation is called, is soft and immersive like a snowdrift but dotted with contrasting elements made of other materials – such as wood or metal – that pop out of the ‘snow’. ‘We wanted to show how well the Tarkett ranges work with other materials,’ explains Cristiano Pigazzini, design manager at Note. The designers also wanted to encourage people to stop thinking of these ranges exclusively in terms of flooring or wall-coverings. ‘It’s a material that is strong and long-lasting, in a way it’s like wood,’ says Pigazzini. ‘You can do whatever you want with it.’
For Tarkett doing an installation like this is about showing their products in a new way. ‘We want to prove that materials which are perceived initially as more functional have great aesthetic potential as well,’ says Florian Bougault, art director for Tarkett EMEA. ‘And that they can be combined with more “noble materials” such as stone, marble, textiles and timber floors.’
RELATED STORY
There is a thread between last year’s installation and this year’s edition he continues. ‘The Lookout’ displayed Tarkett materials that are normally used two-dimensionally in a three-dimensional way. ‘This year’s installation continues with this three-dimensionality but also accentuates the versatility in applying our materials.’ Making the installation’s snowy forms was a challenge even for Tarkett’s extremely experienced technical team he admits, but the complex assembly and finishes are seamless.
The collaboration with Note Design Studio won’t end in Stockholm. It continues in April in Milan with ‘Formations’, another installation that will go on display in the elegant Circolo Filologico Milanese in Brera. According to Pigazzini, ‘that exhibition will take Tarkett’s materials to the limits of what can be done’. On the same occasion the brand will also launch a new range co-designed with Note. Tarkett is on a design journey that shows no signs of abating.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Tarkett website and the Note Design Studio website
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Giovanna Dunmall is a freelance journalist based in London and West Wales who writes about architecture, culture, travel and design for international publications including The National, Wallpaper*, Azure, Detail, Damn, Conde Nast Traveller, AD India, Interior Design, Design Anthology and others. She also does editing, translation and copy writing work for architecture practices, design brands and cultural organisations.
-
The Sialia 45 cruiser is a welcome addition to the new generation of electric boats
Polish shipbuilder Sialia Yachts has launched the Sialia 45, a 14m all-electric cruiser for silent running
By Jonathan Bell
-
Tokyo design studio We+ transforms microalgae into colours
Could microalgae be the sustainable pigment of the future? A Japanese research project investigates
By Danielle Demetriou
-
What to see at London Craft Week 2025
With London Craft Week just around the corner, Wallpaper* rounds up the must-see moments from this year’s programme
By Francesca Perry
-
A postcard from Stockholm Design Week 2025
Global design director, Hugo Macdonald, reports from the Scandinavian fair which, despite challenges, has much worth venturing into the Swedish winter for
By Hugo Macdonald
-
Prostoria celebrates its modernist roots and a decade of design
‘Prostoria 10’ is a project marking the Croatian furniture brand’s ten years and its connection with Zagreb’s rich modernist architectural legacy
By Simon Mills
-
The world’s oldest opera gains a space-age stage intervention
Kinetic sculpture 'Ego' – designed by Lonneke Gordijn of Studio Drift – moves with the performance in a minimal and modern manifestation of the world’s oldest-known opera, L’Orfeo
By Yoko Choy
-
Feminism, fantasy and furniture at Stockholm Design Week 2020
We traversed the Swedish capital to unlock the unmissable events at Stockholm Design Week 2020 (3-9 February) that included responsible design at Stockholm Furniture Fair, pop-ups in restaurants and ex-military bases, plus a recreated artist’s atelier
By Sujata Burman
-
Lego enlists Camille Walala for interactive shipping container in London
In celebration of Lego’s new 2D play concept, the Lego Dot, Camille Walala creates an interactive shipping-container installation in King’s Cross, using over two million lego bricks
By Katie Meston
-
In Miami, Perrier-Jouët presents a cave of ceramics
11,000 ceramics in four different shades and 15 different hues make up Metamorphosis, an installation by Andrea Mancuso for Maison Perrier-Jouët at Design Miami
By Sujata Burman
-
Decoding the creative process at Mini’s A/D/O space in New York
Universal Design Studio realises an ever-evolving installation titled ‘On Loop’ inside the Brooklyn spot
By Pei-Ru Keh
-
Dan Tobin Smith takes visitors on an immersive journey inside gemstones
For London Design Festival, the photographer, together with The Experience Machine and Gemfields, creates an animation of gemstone inclusions inside Collins Music Hall
By Tom Seymour