Green Design Guide – Learning from IKEA Fans

Imagine an online community of 85,000+ people worldwide with a passion for interior furnishings, fixtures and accessories. Now imagine they share interior design and remodeling projects through photo-sharing, 3D virtual model-making and even a forum for discussing green home ideas. This is IKEA Fans.

Why my interest in sharing IKEA Fans with you? It’s a fascinating case study in social networking, brand loyalty, the rise of the “Prosumer”, and a fan-base big enough to influence green home design. What’s more, they exist entirely independent of IKEA.

The Fan’s advocacy for affordable design with a green overlay has not fallen on deaf ears. IKEA has long been a supporter of environmental stewardship but it appears they’ve picked up momentum in going green, perhaps as a result of their fans. Here’s a very cool green initiative as reported on Wikipedia:

“In August 2008, IKEA also announced that it had created IKEA GreenTech, a €50 million venture capital fund. Located in Lund (a university town in Sweden), it will invest in 8-10 companies in the coming five years with focus on solar panels, alternative light sources, product materials, energy efficiency, and water saving and purification. The aim is to commercialize green technologies for sale in IKEA stores within 3-4 years.”

The company is proactively going green, the fans have noticed and IKEA is now the largest furniture manufacturer in the world. In the US, flat-pack furniture from IKEA has been a mainstay for college students and 20-somethings. As that demographic has matured, so has IKEA by offering a full line of kitchen cabinets and appliances. They’re not for everyone, but for the prosumer who doesn’t mind assembling and installing kitchen cabinets, it’s a fit.

The Google 3D Warehouse (3DWH) is where I spotted this trend. IKEA is one of the most popular search words in 3DWH. As of this morning there are 1,561 virtual models of products sold at IKEA in the 3DWH. They can be downloaded and incorporated into home designs using various CAD software apps. Google SketchUp, in its free version, is the most popular.
Why did IKEA create these 3D models? They didn’t. It was their fans! If my numbers are accurate, enthusiasts that wanted to design a project virtually using actual products they could purchase from IKEA created all but 28 models.

After picking up on this trend a year ago, my team at Whirlpool created those 28 models, the IKEA by Whirlpool appliance collection. The downloads have been impressive. The collection gained an immediate following; consistently garnering over 3,000 downloads a week. A year later, the appliances from this collection were downloaded 1,202 times in the last 7 days. Since the “real” appliance products are built to Energy-Star and tough European energy and water standards, I’m pleased to report the 3D collection’s success.

Come back next week for another conversation, and share GreenDesignGuide with a friend. If you’d like to comment, I appreciate your feedback. Please suggest ideas or topics you’d like to hear about. Thanks for reading, watching, and commenting… it’s all good.