Ikea launches Tom Dixon collaboration, a modular, hackable furniture range

One of Britain’s best-known product designers, Tom Dixon has collaborated with Ikea to create a modular, hackable furniture system. Where most of Tom Dixon’s own brand items are beyond budgets of the majority of young design fans, this design is aimed to start simple, and affordable, with the capability to upgrade as your life evolves.

The collection, named Delaktig – the Swedish word for “involvement” – is based on a single bed with an aluminium frame. To this, owners can add items to hack/customise it, for example, a task lamp, a headboard/armrest, a side table, a magazine rack that can be clamped, slotted or bolted on. This “mutates” the bed into a sofa, a workspace or entertainment spot. Each item is stripped back to its most functional form, giving the collection what Tom Dixon’s press release describes as “a minimalist sculptural composition”.

Some of the hacks are available from Ikea, others from Tom Dixon, and range in price, but all are designed to add to the original base product – the bed. Ikea said in a statement that, normally, it works with one designer or one design team. This time they “wanted to really open up for co-creation in every sense” so asked 75 design students across the world to come up with their own Delaktig add-ons, which will form part of a growing “hack” range to be released in future.

Its conception, essentially, tackles the throwaway society that Ikea itself originally contributed to. Instead, it’s inviting buyers to keep its purchases and adapt them. “You get married or you split up, and you might want a different configuration. Or, maybe you’re renting out a spare room to somebody,” suggests Tom. “Don’t chuck Delaktig away if you’re finished with it – turn it into something else, something new. Or save it for the children so they can bring it with them when they move out.”

Tom Dixon’s Ikea range is available now in the UK and Europe.