SPACE10 is a network of designers and researchers working on experimental projects from urban agriculture to AR/VR to communal living. How is this community of B2B innovators facilitated and how does SPACE10 work with IKEA to foster and support these collaborations?

After having collaborated with hundreds of talented partners over the years, we can safely say that if we’re the smartest person in the room – we’re simply in the wrong room. We value humility and curiosity in the highest sense. Ideas are not proprietary secrets to be hidden behind lock and key so much as they are living, breathing things that need oxygen and discussion to really flourish. We work with a global, creative network of experts and forward-thinking partners who can challenge us on our ideas and improve them via collaboration.

There are so many inspiring and brilliant people out there, so rather than compete with them, we prefer to invite them in and create something together. We enable and empower people to improve the world using their particular expertise in a way that they are passionate about. This approach also secures continuously fresh perspectives, motivation, speed and expertise in so many different fields, allowing us to deliver projects with a range of diversity and creativity beyond what just our permanent in-house team can do.

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SPACE10 has a Beta Community, a crowdsourced community of technology experts who give you feedback on your experimentations and projects. You then use their feedback to further develop accessible and creative tools to enhance the way we live. What is the importance of this design thinking approach and how does SPACE10 use these crowdsourced insights to enhance internal R&D and product development?

At SPACE10, we have always known that the projects and prototypes we work on are only as great as the creative minds that bring them together.

The Beta Community aims to connect our growing network with SPACE10 designers, researchers and our broader team and collaborators working on experimental projects. We have created an approach so that the Beta Community acts as a forum where all types of creative thinkers from around the world can become involved in the SPACE10 development process.

The goals of Beta Community programming are threefold: 1) create dialogue and exchange with our network, 2) bring members of our community behind the scenes of our projects before they become public and 3) integrate the dialogical and analytical insights we collect back into our research and design process.

Currently, we are working on a live Beta project called Studio, an app that combines IKEA’s life at home knowledge with the latest developments in spatial computing, allowing you to measure, style and share the spaces in your home. Anyone interested in home design and technology is encouraged to join the test community for a first look and opportunity to help shape the future of the project.

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Everyday Experiments is an ongoing series of digital experiments with IKEA which challenge the role of technology in the home. It’s aim is to explore how technology can redefine our homes and ultimately ‘take the everyday and make it extraordinary’. How can technology foster social interaction and community within the spaces we live, work and play? What kind of innovations are you most excited about, especially those that relate to coliving?

Today, we are spending more time at home than ever before – beyond everyday routines like eating, sleeping and unwinding, we have suddenly found ourselves working, exercising, learning and teaching at home. This is naturally adding new needs to the spaces we inhabit – especially the shared, communal ones whose roles have never needed to be as fluent as they are now. At the same time, technologies are emerging that challenge the way we experience and interact with the spaces around us, and with Everyday Experiments we set out to explore how these can be used to help people make their life at home, and with each other, that little bit better, be it supporting better mental and physical health, better privacy, better play or something fourth.

Take for instance Sound Bubbles, which creates private silent zones by using sound to cancel out the noise that is generated in the environment, or Chain of Traceability that combines blockchain technology with augmented reality to allow you to see where an object comes from, what it’s made of and how we can repurpose it once its primary use wears out. Of course it’s also important to relax and have fun, and Hidden Characters turns your phone into a magical lens that brings your everyday objects to life by turning them into characters that respond to your gestures and interact with each other.

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The Urban VIllage Project is a project that rethinks how we design, build, finance and share our future homes, neighbourhoods and cities. The aim is to allow for cheaper homes to enter the market, make it easier to live sustainably and affordably, and ensure more fulfilling ways of living together. Could you share a bit more about this vision for cross-generational shared living communities and the different technology and ownership solutions involved? For SPACE10, what is the key to ensure the Urban Village Project is a benchmark for sustainable and authentic community building?

As humans, we seek meaningful relationships with those around us. But more often than not it is hard to cultivate those in our cities. We think design and architecture have a crucial role to play in weaving social fabrics. In the case of Urban Village for example, we imagined a cross-generational community living in an environment that is built to foster physical interactions, with shared spaces and shared resources, and great respect for private areas. This balance is the important part.

With this project, resources like mobility or energy solutions are shared in order to help with financial burdens. Through the Urban Village we’re also looking at leveraging other tools like modular architecture, prefabrication and rent-to-buy models to offer more affordable options to people in cities, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to pay rent and nearly impossible for many to own. We believe that facilitating access to ownership will also contribute to creating healthy communities that will care for their common living environment.

We also see digital tools as important enablers of human interactions. We have never been more ‘connected’ these days and yet never more disconnected socially. When the physical and digital world support each other we can get the best of both worlds. With Urban Village we see digital tools as a great way to organise real-life communities, stay connected to the neighbourhood, share moments or resources and manage shared services or spaces. It’s a “digital means to a human end”. We also see those interfaces and tools as efficient ways to manage subscriptions, simplify finances, access services and interact with the building itself.

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‍In collaboration with gestalten, SPACE10 has published The Ideal City, a new book which explores the forward-thinking actions and initiatives being brought to life across the globe to enhance the way we live in urban centres. From pedestrian infrastructure to housing, the book uncovers what is being discussed at the forefront of urbanism through expert essays and profiles. What are some of the community- driven projects featured in The Ideal City and what is it that sets them apart?

Highlighted below are projects we feature that have been initiated bottom-up by engaged citizens who drove the change they wanted to see in their urban environment and did not wait for architects, city planners, developers or politicians to make it happen for them. In this category we find projects like:

• Schoonschip
• New Ground co-housing
  (Older Women’s Co-Housing)
• Michigan urban farming initiative

If we dive deeper into Schoonschip, it is a floating community initiated by committed citizens and designed by Dutch architecture firm Space & Matter. The community consists of a cluster of homes built on one of Amsterdam’s many waterways. Electricity comes from 500 solar panels, while 30 water pumps extract heat from the canal to keep the homes warm. Waste from toilets and showers is treated and converted back into energy. Each home is equipped with a battery to store surplus energy. Residents even have space on the roof to grow their own food.
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This community of 100 people represents a microcosm of an entirely self-sufficient city, showing how we can rethink our reliance on the earth’s resources.

We hope that when designing future cities, it will always start with a local conversation that asks people who actually have to live there: “what kind of cities do you want to live in? What do you believe is important for a good life? And what makes a good home for all of us?”.

The above are just a few examples of aspirational, purpose-driven, sustainable, community-oriented projects that create a more liveable, resourceful city. It also shows what can happen when ordinary citizens come together and create an environment that values shared spaces and resources, to help enable a better everyday life.