Coming soon at Ikea: movable walls

Smaller apartments

Ikea is testing ways to make smaller apartments look and feel bigger in a Malmö apartment fitted with movable walls. For the past 2 years, the chain invited families to come and live in the apartment for two weeks, with all of the participants saying that the apartment felt larger thanks to the innovative applications, despite the other apartments having more actual floor space.

It comes as no surprise that Ikea is looking for new ways to fill smaller spaces: an average apartment in Sweden, with 2 bedrooms, was 62 sqm in 2001, while it is only 54 sqm nowadays. Other countries follow a similar evolution with smaller apartments.

Ikea feels the biggest problem will be to get the walls to follow safety regulations, which is why it may take another three years before these walls will be added to its well-known catalog.