In an expansion beyond bookshelves and meatballs, IKEA will soon be furnishing refugee camps around the world.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is partnering with the Swedish furniture giant to help build refugee housing in areas of conflict. The charitable wing of the company, the IKEA Foundation, has agreed to collaborate with UNHCR to design “flat pack” huts for the Kawergosk refugee camp in northern Iraq for Syrian refugees.
The new housing units are about twice the size of the typical UNHCR tent, equipped with insulated walls, solar panels, and private rooms. They take about four hours to assemble with the requisite illustrated instruction manual, and look somewhat like a sterile garden shed.
“The huts were tested in Ethiopia and proved to be very successful,” said Olivier Delarue, a senior advisor for UNHCR Innovation, who has a pivotal role in the partnership. “Refugees have been very happy about the living conditions because they were designed with their feedback and 60 years of UNHCR experience,” he said.
In a video produced by the IKEA Foundation that shows how to assemble the housing unit, an engineer explains: “It is like an IKEA bookshelf, easy to be transported and set up in the field.”