BoKlok (pronounced “book look”, Swedish for “smart living”) is Ikea’s biggest idea yet. Having seized the market for affordable home furnishings in the past decade, the Swedish retail giant is now planning to provide the homes themselves. They’ve already built some 3,500 BoKlok dwellings across Scandinavia, now they building homes in the UK. Each apartment, with two or three bedrooms, is expected to cost less than $200,000. More will follow - many more, probably, since BoKlok is quick to build, energy efficient and aimed at households earning between $30,000 and $60,000 a year. Jokes about homebuyers being handed a pile of flatpack boxes and one of those fiddly little Allen keys are greeted with forced “haven’t heard that one before” smiles at BoKlok’s HQ in Malmo.
“Yes, we get a lot of that, even though they’re built in factories by skilled craftsmen,” says Ewa Magnusson, BoKlok’s marketing manager. BoKlok, she explains, is actually a joint venture between Ikea and the Swedish construction giant Skanska.
BoKlok homes don’t exactly come in flatpacks, but they’re not far off. The timber-framed buildings are almost entirely prefabricated. They are usually brought to the site on the back of trucks as pre-assembled units with the interiors already fitted out. Each apartment is made up of two of these units, which are simply moved into position by crane. Put on the roof and exterior wall cladding, plumb and wire it in, and it’s ready to live in. The typical BoKlok arrangement is an L-shaped, two-storey block with three apartments on each floor. One such block can be put up in a day.
Via: The Guardian
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Actually, it’s pronounced “Boo Klook.”