5 Cool Things You Didn’t Know About IKEA’s Danish Innovation Lab

When we are trying to improve life for many people, we can often be caught in asking, what problems would you like us to solve?” explains Kaave. “And that’s obviously crucial, but solving a problem is only to reach zero, it’s only to fix something broken. Whereas, if we also tend to ask what dreams would you like us to enable, the list changes comp... See more

“What we do is we design concepts… systems [and] movements,” says Kaave. “Sometimes the output is tangible, but I think we see mostly Space10’s role as, ‘How could we design concepts that will make IKEA relevant in the future?’ And that could go beyond furniture.”

It doesn’t ‘design’ any products – it just designs ‘ideas’The self-titled “future living lab” is interested in both imagining and practically workshopping concepts that will improve people’s wellbeing.

As Kaave puts it, it’s a place where staff aim to “understand the chaos in the world, see patterns in that and put those trends into a new context”, while Simon says they “have an outside-in view on [IKEA] and our role is to challenge them and inspire new perspectives”.