07/07/2026
VERK featured in RUM no. 6
West Swedish brick, Swedish oak and split leather from Tärnsjö. At Stockholm's new cocktail bar Jokes Aside, design studio Verk has created an interior built almost entirely from materials sourced and processed in Sweden.
How difficult can it be to design a bar using predominantly Swedish materials? Far more difficult than you might expect, even in a country that likes to think of itself as a nation of forests and steel. That is precisely what makes Jokes Aside unusual. Nearly every material used in the project has stayed within Sweden's borders from raw material to finished product.
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"In Sweden today, manufacturing is largely about assembling components," says Simon Anund, co-founder and Creative Director of Verk. "At best, imported products are put together here. At worst, they're simply repackaged."
Jokes Aside is the result of a collaboration between Verk, property developer AMF Fastigheter and award-winning bartender Johan Evers with his business partner Emma Wili-Blomé.
"It has actually helped that Jacop and I have been a little naïve," Anund says, referring to fellow co-founder Jacop Merlini. "Otherwise you never get anything done. Our starting point is often, 'How hard can it be?"
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"Ultimately, it's a logistics problem. The value chains simply aren't there. Sweden has just one independent industrial-scale oak sawmill and only a handful processing birch, but hundreds cutting spruce and pine. Forest owners can't be sure they'll be paid for broadleaf trees, so they plant spruce instead. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle."
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"I think the future lies in places where you can enjoy a sense of luxury with a clear conscience. Places where someone has already done the work of considering the carbon footprint, the food and the materials. Places where spending an evening has less impact on the planet than staying at home."
TEXT Sofia Hallström
PHOTOGRAPHY Martin Brusewitz
JOKES ASIDE • Stockholm
Tidskriften Rumbrusewitz
