IKEA and Tom Dixon have collaborated to investigate the future of urban farming, “making homes the new farmland.” In an upcoming entry to the Chelsea Flower Show, the UK’s most popular landscape event, the team will share their first ideas on how “affordable, forward-thinking solutions can be used to grow plants and vegetables at home and beyond.”
The ethos behind the collaboration is to celebrate food as a crucial part of everyday life, and inspiring a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle. Identifying the potential savings in transport miles, water usage, and food waste, the team will use IKEA’s democratic design principles to “develop affordable, sustainable food farming and consumption within our homes and urban communities.”
Gardening is unique in its universal appeal and its transformational power. Without plants and more planting, we are all in trouble! Although we are not traditional garden designers, we think we can demonstrate ways that anybody could make a small difference and broadcast not only the beauty but also the functional importance of horticulture through both traditional knowledge and the latest in growing innovation.
-Tom Dixon
The Chelsea Flower Show exhibition in May 2019 will place the team’s ideas on public display. The entry will consider the future of the environment and the importance of growing food locally, while also investigating the contrast between hyper-natural and hyper-tech methods of farming.
For IKEA, this collaboration is about challenging the way society looks at growing in general and addressing that it’s both possible and rewarding to have a place to grow your own plants in the city. Food is key to humanity and design can support with better solutions. Because at the end of the day we need people to feel inspired to grow and harvest their own edibles within their homes and communities.
-James Futcher, Creative Leader, IKEA Range and Supply
Following the display at the Chelsea Flower Show, the team will begin developing a series of products on urban growing, available in IKEA stores globally in 2021.
News via: IKEA
