Ikea launches digital platform to showcase home design experiments

Ikea’s R&D lab is giving customers an online sneak peek into the future of home design.

Space10, the research & design (R&D) subsidiary of Ikea, is launching a new web-based platform called EverydayExperiments.com. The platform presents a series of digital experiments from third-party technology and design studios that explore new ways of how consumers interact with their living spaces.

The experiments focus on emerging technology areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, augmented reality (AR), and spatial intelligence. Experiments include using a mobile device as a tool to experience how sound moves around a space, turning furniture into virtual living creatures for children’s enjoyment, and controlling what spatially aware devices can sense and process in a home while also respecting consumer privacy. The collaborative experiments have been developed with the intention to create a better everyday life at home. 

“The future home should be about the people first,” said Fredrik Axén, digital manager core business franchise, Inter IKEA Systems B.V. “It’s a place for everyone to be safe, to feel comfortable and in control. Technology is quickly becoming a vital part of the IKEA customer experience and home furnishing offer. Being a values-driven brand, we focus on people and planet.  As we enter a new digital era, we are also exploring new ways to create a better everyday life at home, while protecting people’s privacy.”

“Home – especially these days – plays an important role in how we develop our everyday interactions and relationships. It is not only the place where we live but the place where we work, teach our children and where we connect with the world digitally,” said Bas Van De Poel, creative director at SPACE10. “We believe, the more we learn about the next curve of design and technological innovations, the more we can help people to make tomorrow’s life at home, and with each other, even better.”

EverydayExperiments.com is initially launching in collaboration with participating studios and designers Bakken & Baeck, Field, Random Studio, ManvsMachine, CIRG, Philip Price Hennigsen, Strømlin, Set Snail, Alonso Holmes, and Timi Oyedeji.