Inside IKEA’s top secret product lab in Sweden, where new items are dreamt up

Each of the home furnishing giant’s 12,000 products have passed through this typical-looking three-storey office block in a tiny town in Sweden’s south.

Each of home furnishing giant IKEA’s 12,000 products has passed through a fairly typical-looking three-storey office block in a tiny town in Sweden’s south.

The top secret product development laboratory is where an army of engineers and designers comes up with a host of new future concepts, from beds, couches and tables to lamps, speakers and air purifiers.

“Magic happens here,” Fredrika Inger, managing director of IKEA of Sweden, declares.

Inger has just welcomed a small and carefully vetted group of international journalists to the lab in Älmhult to receive a rare insight into how additions to the vast product range go from idea to reality.

“There are several designated zones where you may take pictures, but nowhere else,” she instructs.

Security is tight, and for good reason.

IKEA’s whole-of-home philosophy means there are some incredible and out-of-the-box prototypes securely housed within these four walls.

Every product that’s developed must meet a strict criteria of five values – form, function, sustainability, quality, and low prices.

“The people who work here have a tough job,” Inger says.

“We have a minimum criteria – meeting those five goals – but then we see how we can stretch them. We call it democratic design.”

The top-secret IKEA product design laboratory in Älmhult, a small town in Sweden's south where the world's first IKEA store opened in 1958.

It’s tempting to see these grand statements and passionately declared philosophies as typically hollow corporate speak.

But IKEA has believed in these principles since it was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, a 17-year-old visionary who began with pens and wallets before eventually pioneering the concept of chic but affordable plat-packed furniture.

Ingvar Kamprad created IKEA in the 1940s and built it into a global icon.

The very first large format store, which current big box IKEAs around the world are still largely based on, remains standing in Älmhult and is now a sprawling museum.

It houses originals of key pieces from each decade – defining products, sheets of fabric, a host of trinkets and curiosities, and technological innovations alike.

From the very first range to now, the belief behind every single product is the same – create something that makes life easier or more pleasant. Or ideally, both.

Frederika Inger welcoming journalists to the top-secret product development lab.

“The world we live in is a bit tough,” Inger says.

“There are many challenges and it’s a bit scary. This a defining time in history and there’s an opportunity for us to be a positive force and help people live well and stay on the right path.”

IKEA’s product designers don’t just operate on gut instinct.

Teams of researchers spend time in the field, embedded within the homes of regular people to observe how they live and what can be improved.

In some cases, that need is confirmed by the experiences of the engineers themselves.

David Wahl is a senior designer who spearheaded an emerging and burgeoning new category while working with IKEA in China.

Being used to the clean and crisp environment of Scandinavia, Wahl became worried about air quality in congested and smoggy Shanghai.

But he found his stock standard store-bought home air purifier ugly and uninspiring.

“I went to Beijing Road, the electronics district where you can buy just about anything,” he recalls. “I had the idea of building my own air purifier that looked like a piece of furniture.”

He bought a pretty basket and embedded the machinery inside it. It looked nice but “wasn’t necessarily the most effective purifier”, he laughs.

David Wahl's first prototype of a piece of furniture with an air purifier built inside.

Over coming weeks, he continued tinkering with the design in his spare time, perfecting it until the piece was both robust, efficient and attractive.

Realising he was onto something, Wahl thought about the mass market implications.

Long story short, his initiative led to the creation of the Starkvind table with a built-in air purifier and smart home connectivity.

David Wahl with a concept sketch of the table with built-in air purifier he invented.

The Starkvind table with built-in air purifier is an example of innovative IKEA design.

There’s also an iteration of the product that allow it to be stood vertically at 90 degrees, almost doubling as a kind of art piece.

Another growing product segment is sound – and well beyond a device to blare music from, product design developer Stjepan Begic explains.

As IKEA hones in on its focus on sleep quality, with mattresses, pillows, doonas and textiles, it once again brings its whole-of-home focus by integrating lighting and sound into the equation.

“When it comes to sound in the bedroom, you normally only think about blockout noises, like white noise,” Begic says. “But we think you can use sounds to create certain scenarios … winding down, waking up, as well as sleeping.”

Hi-tech and smart products are increasingly common, like the Symfonisk lamp with speaker.

… or the Symfonisk wall art with built-in speaker.

His team has been embedding speakers in more and more products. There’s the Symfonisk lamp with state-of-the-art sound technology and Wi-Fi, a piece of wall art with a concealed speaker, and a bookshelf speaker that looks like a sculpture.

“It doesn’t impose and it can slide in between books and be forgotten,” Begic says.

“Not many people want a big, chunky and cumbersome speaker in their room, but they are very open to emerging technologies that improve life. Combining functionality with design to make it as unobtrusive as possible is the goal.”

Designers demo the clever features of a new couch.

IKEA has designed lighting products from its early days, but they’ve evolved significantly as technology has improved.

They do much more than switch on and off these days.

With smart home functionality, there’s a ‘rise and shine’ wake up mode with red, warm and gradually brightening qualities that mimic a sunrise and help the body to wake naturally, as well as a wind down mode that eventually does the opposite and prepares the body for slumber.

A stand-alone test lab, staffed by robots, sees products put through their paces.

Each mattress is designed with the help of hi-tech data insights.

There’s even adaptive lighting technology that allows lights to adjust to the environment throughout the day.

Prototypes developed in the lab undergo rigorous testing in a specialised facility next door, where automated machines and futuristic models ensure long-lasting quality.

Can someone lay on a mattress tens of thousands of times without it losing its form and comfort? What about a lounge chair – will it still look top notch after a decade of being sat on?

There’s a lot involved before the next cool lamp or chic sofa winds up in a

“The product range of tomorrow starts here with us today,” Inger says, adding that there’s a lot to be excited about.

Like what?

“You’ll see,” she smiles.

Originally published as Inside IKEA’s top secret product lab in Sweden, where new items are dreamt up