IKEA releases limited-edition book Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live
IKEA aims to create ‘a better everyday life’ for us and our planet through design. This means meeting the needs of people today, without compromising the needs of future generations.
Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live looks at the home life of twelve everyday people including activists, artists, athletes and gardeners as well as young families across the globe. From Mexico to Moscow, Bali to Beirut, the book shines a light on the small things we can do – through this series of inspirational studies at home – to make our world a little better.
Since the 1950s IKEA, the international design and furniture company, has conducted Home Visits all over the world to find out more about the way people live and investigate how daily life at home can be improved. This feedback informs product development.
Inspired by the IKEA’s Home Visits, Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live presents a case studies or ‘Life Visits’ of twelve diverse individuals and families around the world. The book also highlights some of IKEA’s most iconic products born from this approach over the past 70 years.
Today, IKEA is rethinking its own consumption and adopting new ways of working. Together with co-workers, customers, and partners, they are determined to transform their way of working from linear to circular by 2030.
Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live is structured into six thematic chapters: Time, Space, Food, Rest, Play, and Togetherness. Each chapter features three iconic IKEA designs, two Life Visits – interviewed and photographed by local writers and photographers – and one photo essay by a photographer who has interpreted the theme of the chapter. Beautifully designed and produced with an exposed spine and a dynamic layout, the book includes the beloved IKEA ruler, here serving as a detachable bookmark.
The products featured in the book are some of the best examples of IKEA’s ‘democratic design’ and its five principles: Form, function, quality, sustainability and affordability.
Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live features engaging interviews, striking imagery, and thoughtful essays. The book represents a study of sustainability and how we live at home today. Through the stories featured, it highlights the remarkable relationship between designers and real people. Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live shows how inspiring people and their ideas can be, and serves as a call to action for each one of us to take small but important steps at home to make our world a better place.
Us & Our Planet: This is How We Live is edited by Maisie Skidmore, with a foreword by Peter, Mathias and Jonas Kamprad. Available to purchase from 10 March 2022 via Phaidon for $39.95.
