The world is developing every day and we continue to discover new and innovative ways to better our quality of life. A trend that everyone seems to be focused on is saving the environment, which is also known as sustainable living. Not only does this apply to our lifestyle and environment, but it also translates into design. Sustainable living is becoming more popular around the world and is a lifestyle using skillful and sensitive design. It eliminates negative environmental impact and requires renewable resources. We each have decided to research different furniture companies to broaden our knowledge of the innovative practices used in each company. Throughout our paper we will introduce each of our companies and the products and practices they use to produce sustainable furniture. Our research will show that sustainable furniture design is beneficial to consumers by allowing them to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle as their manufacturers develop innovative ways to make renewable furniture. Company Introductions Ashley Furniture is the largest furniture manufacturer in the world. Once the CEO, Todd Wanek, informed himself of the benefits of sustainability in furniture design, he chose to alter their manufacturing process by using engineered wood opposed to lumber. For over 60 years Ashley Furniture has specialized in furniture design which has won them the title of "World-Class Furniture Manufacturer". With all of the innovation and experience in the furniture industry, they have come to be known as the "largest manufacturer of quality home furnishings". Ashley strives to achieve the best quality possible for their furniture and they are also continuously looking for ways to refine their products. After rea... ... middle of paper ... ... "Introduction to the Standard." Sustainable Forestry Iniative. Viesso, Inc., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. “Innovative Advance in Sustainability”. Wisconsin Business. Ashley Furniture, N.D. Web. Kujac, Piper. "ASK INHABITAT: Is Imported Bamboo Really Sustainable? | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building." Inhabitat Sustainable Design Innovation Eco Architecture Green Building ASK INHABITAT Is Imported Bamboo Really Sustainable Comments. Inhabitat, 17 Feb. 2007. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. . "LEED." U.S. Green Building Council. USGBC, 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. . "Minnesota Department of Health." Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Your Home. Minnesota Government, n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. .
Known as one the largest global home-furnishing retailers, IKEA currently has over 139,000 employees located in 53 countries and generates roughly 39.3 billion US dollars in annual sales (IKEA, 2014). Ingvar Kamprad began selling different types of items and founded the company in Agunnaryd, Sweden in 1943. Kamprad found that his greatest entrepreneurial opportunity was in furniture. Many households at that time were changing from receiving furniture that was handed down to desiring new, inexpensive, and stylish furniture. Kamprad was able to find a business opportunity to change the current social situation since a lot of the furniture was priced high at the time. He wanted to be able to offer his customers a wide selection of functional and well-designed furniture at a price many could afford (Bartlet & Nanda, 1996). Kamprad had a better understanding of what the customer desired and how to go about meeting those desires at prices that were lower than other furniture companies, in turn creating a competitive environment (De Kluyver & Pearce, 2011).
Dakota Jackson is considered to be one of America’s leading furniture designers. Having originally started his career as a magician, it is no surprise that Jackson’s designs are considered to be marvellous works of engineering and his early works even included engineering illusions, thus reflecting his background in magic. In 1989, Dakota Jackson entered the mass production furniture market with the Ke-Zu seating collection. Continuing in this mass production market, in 1991 Jackson introduced the ‘Vik-ter’ chair. This ‘bio- morphic’ stacking chair was first introduced at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in Manhattan. The Vik-ter chair’s “highly production oriented” design features a weld- ed-steel frame that curves aswell as a tapered cherry-plywood laminated seat. The design is said to be able to be produced in seven minuets, and received a silver award for environ- mental design in the 1992 Industrial Design Excellence award.
Ecology issues have become of greater importance world-wide, increasing the value of eco-friendly produced furniture.
ForIn the past couple of years, IKEA has been deeply involved with the issues of the environment. In the article, “IKEA’s
Environmental analysis is integral to understanding how the organization operates within the organization itself, with in the industry and within the macroeconomic environment. For this analysis the subject organization will be IKEA. “IKEA Group is one of the world’s largest privately owned companies, engaged in the retail of flat-packed home furniture and other house wares. Operating over 150 large-scale stores in over 30 countries, and with a mail order division, IKEA sells a range of furniture, which is made by over 2,000 suppliers in more than 55 countries. The company is headquartered in Helsingborg, Sweden”. (DataMonitor, 2007). IKEA major retail competition in the US are: Furniture Brands International Inc , Office Depot Inc , Sauder Woodworking Co., Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. , and Staples, Inc. This paper will identify the key macroeconomic variables which affect IKEA and the retail industry as a whole. To better understand the effects of such variables upon the industry, two specific variables will be developed further. Once an understanding of how the industry is affected by these variables, the challenges and opportunities will be identified for IKEA, which operates in the retail industry.
IKEA is more than a furniture store they are a company driven by values (IKEA, 2014). The company seeks to make their consumers lives easier by providing them with modern, innovative, inexpensive products which they use to tackle daily home activities. IKEA Group has 298 stores in 26 different countries (IKEA, 2014). The company’s vision is “to create a better everyday life for the many people” (IKEA, 2014, para 1). Using innovative techniques for creating, producing, and marketing their products IKEA can provide consumers with durable products for reason...
Years ago Ikea committed to sustainability, its vision “to create a better everyday life for the many people” and its values standing at the base of this primary goal. The company seems to improve itself and make big steps toward this sustainable approach year by year, offering its customers a great value for money spend on all of their furniture products. The concept itself characterizes well its Swedish ruts, where individuals are accustomed to live a life
The beginnings of today's green revolution can be traced back to the environmental awareness of the 1960s and European design. New construction techniques have lead to the development of innovative materials and design concepts. Green buildings are designed, constructed and commissioned to ensure they are healthy for their occupants. Successfully designed green projects can involve an extensive array of factors, ranging from the resourceful use of materials, to careful consideration of function, climate, and location.
IKEA know as a unique furniture business that involved the customer’s needs with the potential on the factory floor. IKEA have owns abilities to develops its products directly based on the understanding and knowledge about the life and home challenges among the customer’s needs with low cost and high quality product. The skilled suppliers create the furniture that can adapt with the product size and constructions that enable them to produce, package and provided delivered stock in proficient way to all customers. It also put effort in developing, improvement and save resources. Apart f...
Each category will be analyzed using IKEA student info website, IKEA group corporate website, resources from University of Phoenix library and articles from magazines. The key questions that the author will address are
Sustainable design has steadily become the architecture catch phrase of the day, being thrown around to make us aware that everything we “design” has an environmental burden. Many designers, architects and builders have installed the “idea of green” into their buildings to demonstrate a potential to improve performance and reduce costs through sustainable strategies. One of the main methods of creating sustainability in buildings is with passive design. It has been applied by architects and engineers to achieve highly thermally insulated structures with low energy use. With rising prices and political pressures energy economy has become a key feature in a lot of contemporary buildings. Green star is Australia’s primary “green” large building rating system, evaluating many different aspects of a building and its construction. It sets out to judge a building on its environmental merits and to see if it performs to world class standards of passive design, giving them a number to reflect its viability to be called green, with 6 being the top number. It is important for our learning environments to help us push contemporary ideas and expose its students to relevant topics, so the University of Adelaide set about to take these principles of passive and sustainable design and create Australia's first 6 star, Green star rated education building, Innova21.
Green furniture is usually made of natural resources and recycled material such as wood mostly bamboo which is technically a grass. The advantage of using eco-friendly furniture is mainly the reduction of chemicals and volatile organic compounds released, which results in clean air. Additionally, local organic food would be introduced in the menu. This is of great benefit to the environment as organic food is grown with no pesticides or fertilizers and therefor petroleum products are not used as much. Apart from being non-harmful to the environment, the introduction of organic foods would also bring about a healthier lifestyle to the guests of the hotel. Also, reusable items mainly including dishes, cutlery and cups would be provided at the restaurant. This will result in the reduction of waste from landfills leaving no dangerous pollutants in the
Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and comfort of building occupants, thereby improving building performance. The basic objects of sustainability are to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimal waste, and create healthy, productive environments (“Sustainable Design”). Focusing primarily on the sustainable design principles, there are five, including: low-impact materials, energy efficiency, quality and durability, design for reuse and recycling, and renewability. As sustainability appears to become the necessary trend in architecture, the question concerning the cost versus outcome of “going green” really an investment or a waste of time and money comes to mind. With our research provided below, we believe the expenses may truly be with the investment in the end.
Furniture adds soul to a home décor as we can see that it is not merely practical and functional in its function, but has an artistic impact to it. In each generation it has its own style which comes from earlier event of its social structure. Furniture has been excelling with time to become family heirloom for the future generations.
Web Ecoist - Stephanie. (n.d.). Building with Bamboo: 13 Super Sustainable Structures. Retrieved from Web Ecoist: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2011/06/20/building-with-bamboo-13-super-sustainable-structures/