Ikea’s Radical Innovation Studio is Shutting Down Forever

After a decade of developing conceptual designs and new approaches to corporate innovation for the global home goods giant Ikea, the independent design lab Space10 is closing. The last day of operations at its Copenhagen studio will be August 31.

Two of Space10’s cofounders frame the closure as quitting while they’re ahead. They say the design lab was created to start a process of innovation within the corporation, coming up with new ways of thinking about what Ikea could accomplish rather than specific products it should sell. That approach has infiltrated the company and its locations around the world. “At the end of the day, we have basically reached all of the objectives we set out for ourselves when set up the collaboration,” says cofounder Simon Caspersen.

Space10 was formed in 2014. It grew out of a collaboration between Ikea and the Danish design collective ArtRebels, which had designed a collection of furnishings for the retailer. Ikea’s then-CEO, Torbjörn Lööf, called the group in for a meeting. They could have proposed another new line of products, but the designers had something bigger in mind. “Instead of just creating a better future for Ikea, our starting point was asking how Ikea could help create a better future for the world,” Caspersen told Fast Company in 2015. “What we suggested was, let’s get rid of the whole client-agency model, have Ikea pay the basic fees and costs of running a space, and then devote ourselves to looking 10 or 20 years down the pipeline, and how Ikea can be relevant in that world.”