Editorial

Dear reader,

We all know them: Aestheticized images of architectural architecture, including perfectly coordinated interiors with spacious residential and living environments. And let’s be honest: Aren’t we sometimes green with envy when we browse through these magazines? At any rate, I like to pick them up because the magazines give me the chance to spend moments in other rooms and times, just like watching a good film. These kinds of highly stylised images are an expression of real interior design – a way of life mostly reserved for a few, however.

That’s why we’re asking: Isn’t interior design a mirror of our society and thus deeper, more diverse, more complex?

These are exactly the questions we’re exploring in IKEA’s digital magazine Life at Home: The articles are devoted to interior design in which the traces of everyday life become visible. These are designs that can reinvent themselves again and again because they adapt to the current needs of their participants and reflect the individuality of personalities and life concepts in equal measure. The “home visit” section shows how different these can be. The articles provide a richly illustrated insight into the most varied living situations – from retirement homes to alpine huts, from collectors’ worlds to caravan life.

There’s no doubt that interior design is strongly influenced by social trends. In his articles, the author and journalist Oliver Herwig reveals the pointed and entertaining tendencies that shape the spaces we live in. For instance, in a recently published article, he asks why so many people want to furnish their home like a hotel room.

Together with our authors, we decide what we’re going to focus on in the digital magazine. In your articles, essays and reports you’re free to express your observations, because journalistic independence is part of a democratic way of life. This is a cornerstone of our society. A society with a wide variety of lifestyles, which understands the opportunity to do so as an expression of true democracy.

A panorama of lifestyles and residential arrangements with analyses of the influences that make our houses a focal point between home, work space and place of longing: These are the topics that make up the framework for Life at Home, the digital interior design magazine.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

Warm regards,
Raphael Rossel