IKEA Requires Your Approval for a Fictional Co-Living Experiment

The future-housing laboratory of IKEA, SPACE10, has declared that the next seven days would be dedicated to a “playful research project” to inspect the prospects of co-habitation.

A website called ‘onesharedhouse2030.com’ was launched by IKEA along with Anton & Irene – a design agency in Brooklyn, New York. Upon visiting the website, the user is required to submit their approval for living in a fictional co-habitation society in 2030. They are also asked about the kind of people they are willing to live with and the order in which the society should be. Moreover, the application form asks the user about the stuff they would let others share with them like work areas, kitchens, autonomous cars, and smart amenities.

SPACE10 expects that this research experiment would give enough knowledge about co-habitation and whether it could provide practical solutions to problems like rapid urban growth, expensive housing, and lonesomeness.

SPACE10 declared,” Humans across the world are moving to cities in numbers we haven’t experienced before. By 2030 almost 70 percent of the global population will live in cities, and some experts estimate that almost two billion people—a fifth of the world’s population—will lack access to adequate and affordable housing.”

“Our cities have never been more attractive to so many people. Yet in the context of booming urbanization, rocketing housing prices, shrinking living spaces and increasing social disconnects, ‘sharing’ will be ‘caring’—more than ever,” commented Guillaume Charny Brunet from SPACE10. “Co-living isn’t new, but as both space and time are increasingly becoming a luxury, the concept needs a revamp. SPACE10 is going on a journey to explore the potential of co-living to better the lives of city dwellers across the planet.”

“One Shared House 2030 is a playful research project that aims to get insights on the future of co-living through a collaborative survey. The viewer goes through a process where they pretend to sign-up for a co-living facility in the year 2030 by letting us know about their preferences in their immediate living environment. The goal is to be able to better understand what specific demographics prefer what type of co-living. The information we collect is open-source, free for anyone to use, and completely anonymous,” commented Irene Pereyra – Anton & Irene design agency.

“IKEA is a curious company, and we’re always exploring new ways of pushing our overall vision of creating a better everyday life for the many people. The company was founded with the aim of enabling people to have a well-designed home—including the many people who couldn’t afford designer furniture,” said the Manager of IKEA Concept Innovation, Göran Nilsson.

“Today we want to experiment how to introduce our democratic design principles of combining form, function, quality, and sustainability—all at a low price—in new areas. In that respect, one opportunity we find interesting lies in the home itself.”