IKEA scholarship to Beckmansstudent
Unique scholarship with tough competition
The scholarship provides a unique opportunity to learn about IKEA and the company's product development process through its own design projects. There is fierce competition for the three scholarship places awarded to graduating students from eight Swedish design schools.
"The design department selects interns from the applications received. I also had the opportunity to meet Lisa and heard her talk about her exciting degree project. Lisa's portfolio caught the interest of many of our designers during the selection process and we believe that her previous experience and many exciting projects are a good foundation for being able to do a good job here at IKEA," says Hanna Dalrot, product designer at IKEA and Beckmans alumnus (Product design 2013)
At IKEA, Lisa becomes part of the design team and gets to be part of the entire design process – from drawing to finished product. And as an intern, you are assigned your own supervisor, a designer from the in-house team.
I'm really looking forward to autumn! It will be exciting to see how IKEA works, it is such an extremely large scale of productions. A small decision has a major impact because it concerns such quantities of products. I am also very interested in production technology and industrial processes and how I as a designer can adapt the shape to get more efficiency," says Lisa.
Degree projects with a focus on sustainability
In her degree project, Lisa Reiser collaborated with the furniture manufacturer Lammhults and developed a two-seater sofa where the sofa padding consists of natural fiber instead of polyurethane foam. By making a piece of furniture completely without polyethers or other chemically produced materials, she wanted to show the possibility of producing furniture industrially with alternative padding materials.
–In industrial production of upholstery furniture, polyureth foam or other polyethers containing isocyanates are used almost exclusively. The substance is suspected to be carcinogenic and is harmful to aquatic organisms and is therefore on the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's list of hazardous chemicals. A lot would be gained if the industry switched polyurethane for natural fiber," says Lisa.
"For me who works with mass production, it was interesting that so many of the Form students in this year's graduation exhibition had worked to adapt their products. As an old Beckmans student, I know how much different collaborative projects meant and it is great to see that so many of the students have been inspired by this in their degree projects, says Hanna Dalrot who warmly welcomes Lisa to Älmhult!
