Whether in the first student apartment or later in the form of a kitchen or a shelf. The furniture from IKEA is an essential part of every household. The Swedish furniture giant has belonged in every home on this planet for a long time. But this is no longer enough for IKEA, and together with a research institute, the company is now looking into the question of how we will live on Mars in the future.
The journey to the stars has recently occupied many companies and institutions. Whether Amazon, SpaceX or countries like USA, Russia or China – they all plan the manned Mars flight. But when we arrive on the red planet, we have to live.
IKEA is facing up to this vision of the future together with the Mars research station in Utah. There, a Mars habitat is currently being imitated in order to simulate daily life on the planet. IKEA, which has already set itself the task of getting as much out of small habitats as possible, has therefore sent its designer Christina Levenborn to the fictitious red planet to develop an IKEA collection for Mars.
Originally, the journey was only meant as inspiration. The designer was to learn from the functional furniture used in Utah and thus develop new products for the furniture store, but it soon became clear that there was also a field of activity for IKEA on Mars.
During her time at the research station, Levenborn developed furniture that emphasized the feeling of privacy in the confined spaces of the Mars houses and modularly stood for maximum flexibility and cleanliness.
With NASA’s plan to station a permanent human crew on the Moon by 2024, the deployment of the space facility is closer than may seem at first glance. IKEA is taking a completely new approach, and it remains to be seen when other companies will also be focusing their activities on space.
Post picture: IKEA
