The new Ikea collection: inspired by space

When Ikea unveiled the “Rumtid” study in 2018, it read like a PR stunt: furniture inspired by a Mars simulation in the Utah desert. Today, with rents soaring and city flats shrinking, the concept looks less like a gimmick and more like a remarkably prescient forecast. Here’s what lay behind “Rumtid” and which parts have since become reality.

What “Rumtid” Was Really About

The name says it all: “Rumtid” combines the Swedish words for space and time. It wasn’t a finished sales series, but an open design study. IKEA wanted to find out how people will live in 30 years when cities are denser, apartments smaller and resources scarcer. Instead of speculating in a showroom, the in-house innovation lab Space10 sent designers to places where tight living is already everyday life.

One stop was the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, a Mars Society facility where teams live and work under Mars-like conditions. The key difference to the coverage at the time: NASA did not co-design any IKEA furniture. The designers gathered on-site impressions of how to live functionally-and still humanly-on a few square metres. The second inspiration hit closer to home: the famous capsule hotels of Tokyo, where tight living has been cleverly organised for decades.

The topic wasn’t Mars; it was the question of how tightness can be turned into something you actually enjoy living in.

Four Drops: Time, Space, Water, Air

“Rumtid” was split into four areas, each addressing a core housing need. Time focused on lighting solutions that support the circadian rhythm when a window is missing or faces north. Space was the modular furniture system, the heart of the study. Water explored growing and supplying on the tiniest footprint, visible in the indoor terrarium. Air introduced a reimagined air purifier that looks like a piece of décor instead of a gadget.

The modular system was the real breakthrough. It consisted of lightweight tubes made from recycled veneer that are rolled into hollow bodies. The tubes can be cut to any length and clipped together without tools or creating notable waste. The same components become sofa, bed, shelf or wardrobe. When you move or your floor plan changes, you rebuild instead of buying new.

What Actually Made It Into Reality

There was no big simultaneous launch. “Rumtid” was always intended as a study, not a catalogue series, so its ideas trickled into real products over time. The idea of modular, grow-with-you furniture now appears in several IKEA lines. Recycled and easily separable materials have moved from promise to standard. Air purifiers that don’t look like tech have long been part of the range.

That’s what makes the retrospective so interesting. In 2018 “Rumtid” felt like a stylish space-themed gimmick. By 2025 the starting conditions are real: living space per person is shrinking in urban centres, rents are climbing, and sustainability is no longer a marketing add-on but a purchase criterion. The study didn’t predict Mars; it predicted the typical German city apartment.

What You Can Steal for Yourself

You don’t have to wait for a re-edition to apply “Rumtid” logic. Three principles work in any small flat: first, furniture that does more than one job instead of a separate piece for every function. Second, light as a mood tool, not just illumination-especially in dark old-building corners. Third, materials you can later separate and reuse. That’s not deprivation; it’s the definition of good small living.

Read more about modular systems and where the four concepts came from in Modular Furniture: What Became of the Four Concepts from 2020. If the recycling idea behind the veneer tubes appeals, check out Upcycling: From Old to New.