Nordnet, an online bank active in all of the Nordic countries made the strategic decision to move their HQ to a more central location in Stockholm but at the same time they also had some other aspirations. This move would also play a role in the brand building strategy. The choice fell on a very unique building on Kungsholmen with a history of housing innovation and entrepreneurship.

Known as Dykaren 10 and owned by the property developer Humlegården the building itself was inaugurated in 1899. It initially served as a production and mechanical workshop for Arehns Mekaniska Verkstad owned by engineer Gerhard Arehn who started his business by producing matchboxes, including the machines that did the job. This was a huge innovation. The company became one of the pillars in what today is more known as Swedish Match.

The property developer Humlegården did a fantastic job in restoring and preserving the unique industrial feel of the building and bringing back some of the old charm in a new suit. Nordnet passed on the mission to the architectural firm Codesign. The goal was to create a conceptual atmosphere where more than 400 employees would easily have a sense of orientation regardless of where they were located in the building, which stretches over 6700 sqm office space on five separate floors. Codesign worked hard to create a natural flow with the help of different elements towards a core of the building. Of course, lighting was a vital element in order to achieve this flow.

To achieve their vision Codesign decided to take a rather different approach to the implementation of the office lighting: the idea was that all light should seem to emerge from the core of the building, like a continuous sunray of light.

Waldmann in collaboration with the interior design company Inventia was selected as the supplier for this vision in a harsh competition with strong players such as Fagerhult, Zumtobel Group and Glamox.

750 pcs of IDOO.line luminaires (single units) were chosen as the perfect lighting solution in order to create the sunray vision of the design. As one can easily imagine this was not a 2-hour standard lighting calculation job in order to achieve the desired result. Countless hours of hard work and expertise by the Waldmann team went into perfecting the lighting calculations for this “unorthodox” alignment of the luminaries. The result was very successful. The installation itself resulted in 1,5 km of IDOO.line and was carried out beautifully by the installer company Midroc in Stockholm.

Even though industrial “production processes” nowadays are in the digital world it is hard not to appreciate the fact that even though we are talking about Waldmann office lighting there is still a strong connection to the wings of history in this building and its industrial flare.


Lighting solution: IDOO.line