A group of Lund University students has created a kitchen that can be hacked to the preference of its users. The Ikea Hacka was a response to the "Concept Kitchen 2025" project that sought ideas for kitchens of the future. It is aimed at allowing for modification and personalization.
Concept Kitchen 2025 was delivered in partnership by Ikea, IDEO, Lund University School of Industrial Design and Eindhoven University of Technology. It began in 2013 and was run over an 18-month period. Students of the universities were asked to explore our behaviors regarding food and cooking, and design a kitchen for the future based on the needs they found.
The creators of the Idea Hacka kitchen, namely Linus Hagberg, Philipp Süssmann and Niklas Papen, explain that one of the clear and growing trends apparent in their research was the desire for people to modify products to make them their own. Ikea currently offers well-designed and affordable products, the students argue, but ones that are mass-produced and cannot necessarily fulfill the needs of the individual user.
With this in mind, Hagberg, Süssmann and Papen have created a system that is designed to be easily hacked and adapted. Lengths of wood are marked with pre-sunk cut-lines at 1-cm (0.4-in) intervals, four different metal joint types are provided to connect different sections of wood together, and pre-drilled holes in the wood allow for simple assembly.
The flexibility of the system allows for various core units, other Ikea units or third-party units to be integrated into the final kitchen design. Using a small selection of tools and components, a kitchen can be created that delivers exactly what the individual user needs.
The Ikea Hacka concept is currently being exhibited at #IKEAtemporary in Milan.
The video below provides a brief overview of the Ikea Hacka concept.
Sources: Concept Kitchen 2025, #IKEAtemporary
