Archinect - News

Ikea's design modifications for their new store in India and around the world

2018-08-20T15:29:00-04:00

This week, Ikea opened its first store in India–a feat the company has been planning for many years. But while the big, blue exterior of the store looks the same, the interiors, from the displays to the products themselves, have been subtlety tailored to accommodate cultural differences. It’s a strategy Ikea has used to expand from its origins in Sweden, now reaching 30 markets in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia...

As Ikea expands into Asia, the brand recently opened their first store in India tailoring their products to the county's culture. This is part of how Ikea introduces their brand to countries around the globe, by keeping their designs mostly the same with subtle, pointed changes for specific aspects of different cultures.

The company sends representatives to potential expansion areas in order to discern what alterations they may need to make. For India, Ikea created furniture designs with new materials to withstand the extreme humidity rather than using their standard material of untreated pine. They also created more stools and folding chair products to accommodate spontaneous family gatherings, common to many Indian households.

Check out the full article for other cultural modifications Ikea made around the world.

Instant, customizable digital architectural stencils hit the market

2016-09-06T14:38:00-04:00

With a press release that makes references to Banksy's iconic global stencils, the new digital architectural stencil set from Morpholio enables architects to instantly make customizable stencils of complex designs, from faces to condo layouts to intricately shaded trees. The initial image can come from a photograph, drawing, or render.

As Toru Hasegawa, co-creator of Morpholio Trace Pro explains: "Software should mirror the gestures, intuition and behavior of the creative. Trace Pro seeks to amplify it, and in doing so, make it as smart and elastic as possible."

This video illustrates the process, which involves gliding the stencil tool over a particular design, capturing it, and then replicating it/editing it at will with the assorted tool bars:

Philippe Starck + Riko realizes first prototype of custom eco-prefab house

2014-10-17T09:38:00-04:00

First launched in 2013 after years of technological development and collaboration, French designer Philippe Starck and Slovenian wooden prefab building company Riko released the second generation of their customizable Prefabricated Accessible Technological Homes (P.A.T.H.) to the global market just this month. The first P.A.T.H prototype was also recently realized in Montfort, France.

As France works towards its 2020 thermal regulation goal to have all new buildings possess positive energy status, Starck + Riko's prefab homes are packed with high eco-technological systems to allow the homes to produce more energy than they consume. Homeowners have the choice to integrate features like photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbines, rainwater recovery systems, and heat pumps.

Perhaps the most interesting, if not highly marketable, feature of these prefab homes is the variety of mix-and-match design options that cater to homeowners' individual needs and aesthetic preferences. For starters, P....