Ikea’s newest furniture makes Scandinavian design fun again

Inside Ikea’s movie studio-size marketing and production facility at the company’s headquarters in Älmhult, Sweden, a corner of a vast soundstage is piled with a multicolored array of what look like props from some fantastical children’s show. There’s a bench that rocks from side to side, a bright blue lamp that hides two transformative elbows in its skinny post, a glass vase with jug ears sticking out from its sides, and a clock on the end of a curvaceous red tube that looks like a worm wiggling its way out of the dirt. [Photo: Ikea] These whimsical items are all part of Ikea’s new PS collection, a once-in-a-while recurring product drop that the company uses to stretch its experimental design muscles. Now available in stores and online, this year’s PS collection is the 10th since the company set out in 1995 with a line of products intended to take some ownership over the increasingly widespread proliferation of Scandinavian design. [Photo: Ikea] The PS collection is a flag-planting moment for the global home furnishings giant, staking a claim over the present and future of Scandinavian design, and plotting a way forward for its own design intentions. That includes softly curved plywood chairs, a clever square table with a drawer that can slide through from one side to the other, and a wacky adjustable stool that uses a sawtooth mechanism to ratchet up to different heights. [Photo: Ikea] “The brief was ‘less but more, simple but not a bore,’” Maria O’Brian, the creative leader behind the PS collection. “And this is what came back.” She’s standing amid the collection in Ikea’s soundstage in early April when I visited the company headquarters for an exclusive look at its prototyping shop, where many of the 1,500 to 2,000 new products Ikea releases every year are meticulously developed. [Photo: Ikea] During my visit, part of the collection was being prepped to ship out to Milan for the