Open house

‘Make Room For Life’ was the invitation IKEA made to visitors who dropped by the 3,500m2 warehouse it took over for Milan Design Week. I joined thousands of visitors for the day and, unlike many shows at the Milan Furniture Fair, this one was definitely not ‘look-but-don’t-touch’. In the IKEA house, everything was open for guests to try, from exciting new products like the Growoom – the IKEA/Space10 flatpack garden – to immersive installations and interactive performances by tech creatives Teenage Engineering Sound System. 

Art attack

In the creative corner, there was a bit of an art throwdown… New York illustrator Kevin Lyons led Art in Action, a daily drawing event that brought a blank wall to life with his trademark artwork and turned a white KLIPPAN sofa into a piece of modern art. In the IKEA Today studio, students of the Lausanne University of Art and Design worked with robot engineer Patric Lüthi to see if a robot could make art with a handmade quality. 

‘We have a very strong and simple vision about art at IKEA, and it’s that art should be affordable – it should be accessible for the many people – and art belongs in the home, not just galleries’

Henrik Most, creative leader, IKEA Art Event

Lighting the way

Since the big switch to 100% LED, IKEA has turned its attention to the technology of smart lighting. At Milan, it made a big splash, creating a wave of light suspended above an island made from the new FLOTTEBO sofa beds (FLOTTEBO means ‘raft living’ – there is a theme here!). Designer Felix Bodin used 60 FLOALT light panels in the installation to bring the feel-good benefits of natural light indoors.

The modern living room

IKEA asked stylists to create their versions of the modern living room. Pella Hedeby and Anna Lenskog Belfrage looked at the challenges of compact living, wanting to connect with nature and finding room to be creative. Each room offered antidotes to rising urbanisation, with space for relaxing and re-energising. Using the new VIMLE sofa, in yellow, Andrew Trotter and Mari Luz Vidal of OpenHouse made their living room a social space – a 1950s-inspired home that would make everyone feel welcome.

‘People want to slow down. They want home to be a place where they can feel calm and relax. That’s what we tried to visualise in our living rooms’

Pella Hedeby and Anna Lenskog Belfrage, interior stylists

The hot seat

The IKEA PS 2017 sofa became a Festival favourite after getting a customised new look for the event. Where most homes usually have just one, designers for the Festival decided to stack the sofas, head to head, one on top of the other. The result was a shell-shaped cocoon of a chair – a soft spot where everyone was happy to sink into its cushioned embrace for a minute, or 20!

Playing with design

British designer Faye Toogood built the Playhouse. This light-hearted space was created around the idea of the ‘Enfant Terrible’ – a rebel spirit with a playful heart – taking iconic IKEA pieces and turning them into sculptures. Some became inflated, oversized versions of themselves, others looked like their limbs had been put together backwards, and some were just dangling happily from the ceiling. Toogood christened them ‘The Misfits’. They were true originals.

Fun times

Design can seem like a serious business. And big events about design can be very, very serious. It was refreshing to have a place where things were more light-hearted. In the play zone, anyone (big or small) could take a ride on a magic carpet – well, a doormat hacked with graphic prints of the symbols we all recognise from IKEA assembly instructions! 

We love to see our customers get creative with our products. Go for it! But please note that altering or modifying IKEA products so they can no longer be re-sold or used for their original purpose, means the IKEA commercial guarantees and your right to return the products will be lost.

MADE BY

Art director: Jules Rogers
Photographer: Jamie Baker
Writer: Helen Bazuaye