The tenth edition of the IKEA PS collection, which made its debut in Milan more than 30 years ago, is full of fun and mischief. We preview the first three products: an inflatable easy chair, a rocking bench, and a three-directional floor lamp
Since 1995, IKEA PS has been the collection where IKEA’s most experimental and progressive design takes shape. The collection was first created to challenge the design world’s exclusivity, making modern Scandinavian design accessible to everyone. This tenth edition centres on playful functionality.
Ahead of its full global reveal on 13 May, the first look features an air-filled easy chair and a rocking bench from in-house designers Mikael Axelsson and Marta Krupińska, and a three-directional lamp from Rotterdam-based designer Lex Pott.
Driven by the question whether air as a material could deliver the same comfort as foam, Axelsson hand-welded 20 prototypes – trying everything, including a tractor tyre – before landing on a solution: two separate adjustable air chambers held within a tubular chrome frame, giving the chair stability and a compact silhouette. The chair arrives flat-packed in a deep emerald green fabric with a foot pump. “IKEA is all about democratising design, and in that way, air is the perfect material to work with,” says Axelsson. “You minimise the amount of material, and we can ship it flat.”
The rocking bench is playful functionality in its purest form. It does exactly what it looks like it should do: rocks you gently from side to side, but also works perfectly well as a bench. It’s built from solid pine with all its natural character intact. “From the first prototype, I noticed people couldn’t help themselves,” says Marta Krupińska. “They’d sit down, start rocking, then call someone over to try it. Furniture shouldn’t take itself too seriously.”
Dutch designer Lex Pott wondered what happens when you cut a steel cylinder at 45 degrees and start rotating the pieces. Two angled intersections turned a floor lamp into something more versatile – rotate it one way and it becomes a spotlight, another and it’s a reading light, a third creates an uplight, each creating a different atmosphere within the same space. The patented design features a trumpet-form shade and slim metal stem rising from a wide cone-shaped base, available in chartreuse yellow, deep burgundy and cobalt blue. “We reduced the design to its clearest possible form, and the function doesn’t reveal itself at first glance – but that’s where the joy and playfulness live,” says Pot. “There are layers that reveal themselves slowly, and an emotional bond that grows the more you live with it.”
The collection will be revealed in full on 13 May at Democratic Design Days, in Älmhult, Sweden where all the pieces were designed and developed.
