When Even IKEA Accepts You’ll Probably Be Moving Again…

Did anyone catch this? This month, they unveiled "a 12-piece collection of portable, affordable home goods specifically designed for renters, students, and people who move frequently. The company says it was created after studying young adults in central London, aiming to bridge the gap between "temporary spaces" and a feeling of permanence."

Translation: "Home is wherever your landlord hasn't renovicted you yet."
We've spent decades designing homes around permanence: Dining tables built to last generations. Solid wood bookshelves. Family homes with roots.

Now we're designing furniture around... "Can this survive my fourth move in three years?" "Will it fit in the next basement apartment?" "Can I carry it down three flights of stairs because the elevator is broken?"

Look at these photos. It's fascinating and a little depressing, that one of the world's largest furniture companies is adapting its products not to how people want to live, but to how the housing market forces them to live. When housing becomes unstable, everything else follows. Relationships become temporary. Communities become temporary. Furniture becomes temporary. Meanwhile, landlords in our major cities have accumulated so much leverage that even our coffee tables now acknowledge who's really in charge. At this rate, IKEA's next product launch will include: 
The "Month-to-Month" couch (folds itself every 11 months).
The "Notice to Vacate" dining set (comes pre-packed in moving boxes).
The "Above Guideline Increase" bookshelf (gets 2% smaller every year).

We often talk about the housing crisis in terms of vacancy rates, interest rates, and homeownership. But maybe the clearest sign of all is this, when the furniture industry starts designing products for chronic housing insecurity, the problem isn't just the housing market anymore. It's become a lifestyle.