IKEA affordable homes: furniture giant branching out into building houses in the UK – and they’re definitely not ‘flat-pack'

When many of us look to redecorate or kit out a new home, we often head straight to IKEA.

Their low-cost and flat-pack furniture can be found in many homes and there’s a store in many cities, but now the furniture giant is going one step further, branching out to building homes.

The idea is to offer an affordable option for people trying to get on the housing ladder, which will be both sustainable and low cost.

The model has already been rolled out in Finland, Norway and Sweden but now the concept is coming to the UK.

BoKlok, a company jointly owned by IKEA and construction group Skanska, has been building blocks of flats and terraced houses for over 20 years.

They are now looking for land to build homes on in the UK and it’s understood that Worthing, in West Sussex will be the first UK site.

At a recent council meeting, Worthing Borough Councillors voted in favour of a collaboration with BoKlok, which would see 162 flats built on council-owned land.

Just under a third of these homes (30 per cent) would be provided to Worthing Borough Council to be used as social and affordable housing.

The remaining 70 per cent would be 'genuinely affordable' housing based on BoKlok’s “left to live” model, which takes into account the average salary of a full-time worker and how much money they can realistically afford to pay out on a mortgage.

Councillor Kevin Jenkins told the Worthing Herald these houses were “genuine modular builds” rather than flat-pack homes.

He said: “This is an example of taking the lead in utilising land that is in our control to actually meet the growing need of our families that want to get into the housing market.”

BoKlok started in the early 1990s when IKEA and Skanska joined together to offer sustainable and low cost homes, to create an affordable way for those on average incomes to buy a home.

The first homes were completed in 1997 and there are now over 11,000 homes in Sweden, Finland and Norway.

Homes are built as modules in factories and then constructed on site. Small apartments can be built in one day.

Flats typically range in size from 31 to 85 square metres, with townhouses approximately 110 to 117 square metres.

The company’s aim is to minimise impact on the environment as much as it can, “which is why we build in wood – the most climate neutral and natural building material,” the website states.

“We recycle most of our leftover materials; less than one per cent gets thrown away. And our carbon footprint is less than half that of normal building projects.”

Though jointly owned by IKEA, there is nothing "flat-pack" about the housing it builds.

“BoKlok has nothing to do with ‘flat-packs’; it is about high quality off-site manufacturing process that allows us to assemble them at quickly in a safe and sustainable environment, which we know that both employees and customers appreciate.”

A BoKlok spokesperson said, “BoKlok is a sustainable, low-cost housing concept, jointly owned by Skanska and IKEA AB. It currently operates in Sweden, Norway and Finland and is now exploring the UK market for potential sites for BoKlok developments, initially in the south and west of the country. However, we have nothing to confirm at this point in time.”