It wasn’t long ago that do-it-yourself Swedish furniture maker IKEA didn’t dominate the world of yuppy interior design. Okay, that’s not true, IKEA has had that market cornered for a long time but it was only recently that they moved into home manufacture itself. BoKlok Homes (a partnership between IKEA and Swedish construction firm Skanska) have been building homes in Sweden for a little over ten years and are now moving to the UK. A BoKlok (Swedish for smart living) development in Gateshead has already been approved and their British partners, Smart @ Home are very optimistic about becoming “a major provider of housing in Britain.” Pictured here is the original architect’s mock-up used to get planning permission for the development.

These houses actually seem pretty cool, they are all prefabricated pieces that can be assembled in a day cutting down in a big way on the waste associated with on-site construction. In addition to being less polluting on-site, BoKlok houses are also made of sustainable and durable materials. Perhaps most importantly, these houses are going to be filling a sorely-missed niche in the British housing market as property prices all over the country have soared astronomically in the past decade leaving most low-income families with very few options.
Here is a link to a “Guardian article”:http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2048116,00.html about BoKlok. Photo credit to “e-architect.co.uk”:http://www.e-architect.co.uk/newcastle/ikea_housing.htm