REFORM

These findings feed into our selection of images for mood boards, products to consider for furnishing a space or to allow a space to perform in a number of different ways when area is scarce. They also help us maintain course while navigating these muddy waters of a business’ infancy, keep our prow facing away from the wind and our noses up from the sand.

Every now and then we come across something which feels very close to what we are trying to do, to date never quite so literally as to be considered competition (wouldn’t that be nice), but more in a symbiotic kind of way, or perhaps in terms of the impact it aims to produce.

One such case is Reform, a company advocating good design and attempting to make it available to a larger audience than that which often have the means to afford it. Reform proposes to use a sound and affordable base, produced by Ikea, to form the foundation for a designer kitchen. They start with a fairly reduced selection of absolutely stunning designs by incredibly well known contemporary architects and designers. But it is clear this is nothing but the tip of the ice berg.

Who would have thought that me? Average jimi, recently arrived to a new country, constrained in my earning power by linguistic (among other) limitations, could nonetheless afford a kitchen by Henning Larsen Architects, or Bjarke Ingels Group, or Norm Architects, or Sigurd Larsen… heck even the Basis model would cheer me right up every morning while having my cuppa… day after day, would never get old.

And how is that possible I hear you ask? I too wonder.

I wonder whether it is about using a modular, well engineered, accessible, flexible, affordable base such as Ikea furniture, I imagine slashing a huge chunk of the cost related to having to source or manufacture standard elements, a task hard for a newcomer to be competitive at.

I wonder whether it is about consciously avoiding the ‘exclusivity’ label, rather making the product available to a larger audience, thus (and this is nothing by an assumption by yours truly) forecasting volume sales. So that a more humble profit margin per unit still makes for a sound business model.

I wonder whether it is none of the above, but rather the belief that great design sells, and that people have the right to it…

Yep, I think the latter must be it… they are, after all, from Copenhaguen.