Today at Democratic Design Days, IKEA’s annual press event in Almhut, Sweden, IKEA announced that one of their new partnerships will be with the LEGO Group. Together, they will be producing a line of products aimed at bringing children and adults together. “We have a lot in common. Play is essential to kids, and we both believe that, so together the LEGO Group and IKEA, we really want to enable many more opportunities for play in the homes with children and their parents,” said Lena Dixen, Senior Vice President, Product Development, LEGO Group. In fact, the collaboration began with the toy company. LEGO approached IKEA and “asked if we wanted to play,” said Fredrika Inger, Business Area Manager for Children’s IKEA.
Both companies are keeping mum on the specific details of the products as yet, only saying that further information will be announced soon. Given IKEA’s reputation is built on its furniture line, it’s a safe bet that the partnership will result in either LEGO-themed furniture or storage solutions, for which LEGO currently partners with Room Copenhagen. However, IKEA also dabbles in virtually every other conceivable household item, so they may surprise us with an actual line of IKEA-exclusive LEGO toys. Website Apartment Therapy spoke with the presenters at the conference:
I asked Dixen and Inger after the program . . . if they had any sense of whether the products they developed would focus on children, adults, or the intersection of parents playing with children: “Most likely all of the categories that you mentioned—of course kids, but also parents and adults,” Dixen said.
Watch the on-stage announcement from the event below.
