Deco mag Spring '17 issue

ikea kungsbacka kitchen
Deco mag 19
Recycled plastic fantastic
Welcome to the new eco friendly Kungsbacka
kitchen by Form Us With Love and Ikea
Above: Kungsbacka kitchen cupboard fronts and doors are on sale in Ikea from Feb ‘17. Made from recycled plastic bottles and waste wood,
the material offers a chance to bring the kitchen industry into the eco age. Prices from £5 for a door front. More colours will come on stream.
With the aim of showing how
a circular economy can work
at scale, Stockholm-based
design studio Form Us
With Love in collaboration
with Ikea has developed
Kungsbacka, the first
material for kitchen fronts
and worktops made entirely
from recycled plastic
bottles and reclaimed
industrial wood (25 plastic
bottles are used for every
40x80cm unit).
The anthracite grey
Kungsbacka kitchen is
pioneering being made from
discarded materials. ‘A plastic
bottle is not waste, it is a
resource,’ says Jonas
Pettersson, CEO at Form
Us With Love. ‘And most
importantly, this kitchen
proves these materials can
be used for household goods
in large scale production.’
Mass produced kitchens
haven’t to date been
particuarly eco friendly, being
made from unrecyclable
chipboard with plastic lacquer
coatings. There’s also been a
tendency for people to throw
out a kitchen when they move
house and put a new one in,
often just for the sake of it.
That behaviour is starting to
change and the better made
the kitchen, the more likely
people are to keep living with
it, even if it was someone
else’s choice originally.
So the development of
Kungsbacka and its
complementary Hackas
handles is tremendous news
on several counts: firstly, it’s
the embodiment of the circular
economy as it puts discarded
materials back to work in a
new form; secondly, the
material has been designed to
last for decades, and thirdly,
the modular units have been
designed to be timeless -
Form Us With Love and Ikea
maintain the line ‘is resilient
to fashion’.
Keeping costs down
Working with Ikea and an
Italian supplier, Form Us With
Love wanted at the outset to
develop a new eco-friendly
kitchen material without losing
track of production costs.
Pettersson explains that ‘when
using recycled and reclaimed
materials, more research
and development goes
into the project’ and that’s
why products made from
recycled/reclaimed materials
are often more expensive
than those made from brand
new materials.
So developing Kungsbacka
has been a labour of love too
- all those involved wanted to
ensure the finished material
could withstand daily use for
a good quarter of a century.
Anna Granath, product
developer at Ikea Sweden,
isn’t giving away trade
secrets, suffice to say that
‘overcoming the price was
a milestone in the
development... But we believe
sustainability should be for
everyone, not just those who
can afford it.’
www.ikea.com
Deco mag 19