IKEAis typically in tune to consumer desires, and so it seems appropriate that today—let’s say five or six months ahead of the potential moment when the global economy collapses, currency becomes worthless, public spaces descend into dystopian hellscapes, and the soil and water are poisoned beyond repair—the Swedish furniture retailer is releasing open-source plans for a system of growing yourownfood, from your bunker in Brooklyn or your off-the-grid cabin in rural Wyoming, or whatever.
Last year, in Sweden, IKEA debuted what it calls the Growroom, a spherical “garden” that presented an opportunity to grow the most local of local food: inside your own house. It looks like a big Death Star, but instead of...titanium, or whatever the Death Star is made of, the Growroom is wooden, and holds shelvesoverflowing with herbsand veggies. The idea garnered some attention, and so today the company shared instructions for how to build a Growroom of one’s own, requiring only plywood and some screws, a few tools, and a trip to the local maker space.
“We believe that local food production represents a serious alternative to the global food model,” says Simon Caspersen, the director of communications at SPACE10, IKEA’s “future living lab,” in a press release. “Local food reduces food miles, our pressure on the environment, and educates our children [about] where food actually comes from.”
The company was enamored of the Growroom, but reasoned that it “doesn’t make sense” to argue for local production and then create a product that would have to be shipped worldwide; accordingly, IKEA’s instructions for building your own Growroomcan be found here.
Please remember that refrigerators will fail after the electrical grid goes down, meat and other perishables will not last long, and hunting is a skill you should have mastered long ago in preparation for this moment; i.e. the only available future is inDIY vegetables. Good luck!
