Ola Rune studied interior architecture and furniture design at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and Southwark College of Art and Design in London.
In 1995 Rune founded a design studio in Stockholm together with Mårten Claesson and Eero Koivisto whom he met at Konstfack – where they made the collaborative degree project Villa Wabi. The studio started out working in furniture designs and interiors but has since worked with projects from product design to full-scale buildings. Their style is anchored in the minimalistic trend founded in the 1990’s.
Claesson Koivisto Rune has made the interior architecture for the bookshop at Liljevalchs art gallery (1997-98) in Stockholm, the Swedish embassy residence in Berlin (1999), Sfera Building in Kyoto (2003) and the K5 hotel and mixed-use building in Tokyo (2020), the Hotel Bergen Børs (2017) in Norway and McDonalds on Kungsgatan in Stockholm (1998). They’ve also worked with residential interiors and architecture.
As furniture designers Claesson Koivisto Rune has made pieces for numerous national and international manufacturers such as Offecct, Cappellini, Swedese, and Baleri Italia. The stool Flower (2004) for Offecct and the armchair Drop for Skandiform (1999) are two examples that are exhibited at the Museum of Furniture Studies. Drop was launched at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in 2000 and soon became one of the studios best-selling furniture.
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For the redecoration of The Röhsska Museum of Design and Decorative Arts in Gothenburg 2012, the trio designed the chair Röhsska manufactured by Swedese. Claesson Koivisto Rune has also made several exhibitions, both in Sweden and abroad, such as the Nine House in Kyoto in 2003 and Faciem at Galleri Fagerstedt in Stockholm in 2019.
The Claesson Koivisto Rune studio has received more than 60 awards including Designer of the Year and Best Seating 2014 by Elle Décor Italia, Chicago Atheneum International Architecture Award, Design S, and the Red Dot Award – Best of the Best in 2014 which made them the first office to hold a Red Dot in five different product categories. In 2015 Claesson Koivisto Rune received the Bruno Mathsson Award and five years later they were the recipient of the Prince Eugen Medal.
