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IKEA has already conquered the world—here’s how its design chief plans to engineer the future

Marcus Engman
Marcus Engman, Ikea's design manager. Ikea US

Like no furniture company before it, Ikea has conquered the world.

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For urban dwellers in any of the 48 countries that IKEA sells its chic-for-the-people home furnishings at, the IKEA trip is a rite of initiation for moving apartments. The company truly is, as the New Yorker once described, the "invisible designer of domestic life."

But Ikea is just getting started.

In a recent interview with Tech Insider, Ikea's design manager Marcus Engman shared the Swedish giant's grand — and minimalistic — plans for the future, including a twee twist on mass manufacturing, lamps that will charge your phone, and a futuristic kitchen table. 

"Why we are here is to make everyday life better for the majority of people," says Engman, who started with Ikea at the ripe age of 16. "That's our vision."  

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Here's what that will mean for the coming years: 

The future is small.

"Everyone is talking about small spaces," Engman says. "When you go deeper into the research, you can see that people actually choose to live in small spaces, because it’s smart. It's more energy effective, and if you look at your home and what you really need in terms of space, you can see that 90% of the space you have in a normal home is not used. It’s just a few square meters that you use a lot, and some of the square meters that you use time to time." 

As a result, people are starting wonder why they need so much space. He compares it to cars: back in the '90s, people drove big cars, and the cool people drove really big cars. But today, you don't look so impressive driving a Hummer; it's cooler to drive a Prius. 

That's happening in home furnishing, too, and Ikea wants to stay on top of the trend. 

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"What we’re talking about right now is what we call the 'fluid home,'"says Engman. "Everything in one room. Thinking on an activity basis instead of room basis, and lots of activities occurring in the same room." 

Still, he says that you want to avoid certain traps of thinking, like assuming that having a flexible room requires some sort of "home furnishing machinery," such as a sofa that transforms into a table. It's hard to relate to that kind of mechanical furniture, Engman says, because those pieces end up having "a very technical look due to the complexity of the construction," he says. Instead of being a really good at one thing, they end up being a mediocre solution for lots of things. 

Instead, you go back to the basics. 

The future is a table.

ikea table
A table from the Sinnerling collection. Ikea US

"Personally, I do believe that the table is going to be extremely important for the future," Engman says. "That’s going to be the masterpiece of the home. It used to be, hundreds of years ago, that was the big piece."

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Then, somewhere in the 20th century, the sofa became the centerpiece — and the couch potatoes followed.

But the table is reemerging as the furniture focus of the home. It's one of the oldest, most versatile forms of furnishing: You can work there, you can socialize, and in the case of Ikea's concept kitchen, you can cook there. 

 The 2025 concept kitchen table is a remarkable example: when you set ingredients on it, the table suggests other ingredients that you can add for recipes, and what you can cook from ingredients you already have.

ikea table
Ikea US

The table is party to another trend: people want to be more active.

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"If you look like sitting in a sofa or a lounge chair, you’re not in an active pose, because you’re leaning back. When you sit in a chair or a bench around a table, that’s active," Engman says. "That informs choices about money. If I have this money, do I put it in a sofa or a table? I think, for the future, people will buy more tables, and invest more actively in tables than they have done before."

The future is a jug.

ikea SINNERLIG jug
Ikea US

When asked what his favorite Ikea product is, Engman laughs — when you come out with 1600 to 2000 new products a year, you change your favorite from time to time.

But one item is especially exciting to him: the Sinnerlig jug, available in the US in October. 

Something went awry in the production process, Engman explains, and an uneven flow of oxygen in the furnace made all of the jugs a bit different from one another. Rather than a single shade of green, the pitchers came out in a gradient of bluish greens. 

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Ikea had accidentally discovered a way to mass-produce uniqueness. 

"If you just buy things when they are comparable to each other, you might not buy them by heart," Engman says. "But when objects are differentiated, you have to make a choice. You're not just making a logical, efficient choice, you're picking a piece that speaks to you — one that you relate to more strongly and therefore make a more conscious, less disposable decision about."

"Instead of saying that everything is handmade, we could do mass production in the future in new ways," he says. "They could be exactly the same from a functional point of view, but differ a little bit." 

The future is smart.

Riggad work smart lamp ikea
The Riggad work lamp will charge your phone. Ikea US

Watches and locks are getting smart. So are home furnishings. 

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"It's uncharted territory for us," Engman says. "That makes it really fun also. We need to find new friends to collaborate on this with." 

The most attention-grabbing is the recently released "Home Smart" lineup of wireless charging products, which has been described by critics as "almost like having magic furniture." The Riggad work lamp — which has a wireless charging pad built-in directly — looks especially promising.

The "smart" technology could be another way to give each piece of furniture its own personality, so that the user is more connected with the item. Smart furniture is a frontier that Engman says Ikea is just starting to explore — but it won't change the identity of the company. 

"We want to make things for the many people," he says. "It’s not about making techy things. Other companies do that better. We’re not in the electronics business, we’re in the home furnishings business."

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