The Swedish pharmaceutical manufacturer Octapharma is the only major industry left in the inner city of Stockholm. When the company outgrew its old premises, it wanted to remain in the same area and acquired the nearby Stora Bryggeriet (Large Brewery).

The building was erected in 1890-1891 and has a high culture-historical value. This made heavy demands on the adaptation to a modern business space. Today, the old brewery halls contain Octapharma’s headquarters.

White’s interior design brings out the story from a time when beer was brewed in large copper vessels, and puts it in living contrast to the modern bright offices. New functions and needs are elegantly and tastefully incorporated into the old building’s powerful volumes, with a system of exposed wooden beams and plastered stonewalls. Materials and furniture are carefully chosen to harmonize with the character of the building, as well as the core of Octapharma: Swedish, family-owned and global.

Copper, limestone and pine floors, combined with timeless furniture classics, create a calm and solid whole. Everything is thoroughly designed and elaborately selected, from the embossed leather desk pads to the copper-clad boxes that function as meeting rooms. In the Bistro, perhaps the brewery’s most beautiful room, one sits down under the tree crowns of wooden beams to enjoy locally produced and carefully cooked meals. Octapharma’s new Nordic headquarters in the brewery meet the global business, with focus on life, people and its Swedish roots.

Client: Octapharma

Project Start/End: 2008-2015

Completed: 2015

Area/Size: 7 400 m²

City: Stockholm

Photographer/Illustrator: Brendan Austin

Team: Linda Thiel, Märta Friman, Helena Eliason, Mattias Jonsson, Katarina Eurenius, Jake Ford, Sam Keshavarz