Dezeen at IKEA Festival: winners of the Democratic Design Challenge revealed
Students competed for the chance to have IKEA prototype their designs at IKEA Festival in Milan this morning. Find out who won in Dezeen's latest video update.
A bookcase featuring a lattice of elastic rope instead of traditional shelves and a modular wall-mounted storage system for small apartments were announced as the winners of IKEA's Democratic Design Challenge this morning.
Led by IKEA's head of design Marcus Engman, the Democratic Design Challenge jury asked the designers to come up with space-saving products for IKEA.
"The brief they have been set is to work with something that will make room for life," Engman says in the video.
"The qualities [I am looking for] would be form and function. If it leads to more sustainable behaviours, that would be nice. And then of course, is it possible to produce it at a low price?"
Both of the winning designs were by students from local university Politecnico di Milano. The students will now travel to Sweden to meet IKEA's product development teams, who will help them to develop prototypes of their designs.
IKEA Festival takes place from 4 to 9 April in a 3,500-square-metre warehouse at Via Ventura 14 in Milan. Dezeen is broadcasting live reports from the festival, so stay tuned for more video highlights across Dezeen, as well as our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter channels.
Watch the videos as we publish them at www.dezeen.com/ikeafestival.
Keep up with all our Milan coverage here, and use our #milanogram hashtag competition on Instagram for the chance of winning £500 to spend at Dezeen Watch Store.