IKEA’s “Kitchen of the Future,” 10 years later

Way back in 2015, we collaborated with IKEA and students from Lund University and Eindhoven University of Technology on Concept Kitchen 2025, an exploration of how we might cook, eat, and socialize in our homes in the future. Our focus was on behaviors rather than specific technologies or devices. The intent was twofold. One, inspire IKEA’s product development teams to look far beyond normal product development timelines; and two, inspire suppliers, manufacturers—even food companies—to design for future ways of living that IKEA hoped to support. We unveiled the full-scale prototype kitchen for 250,000 visitors to explore during the 2015 Salone Del Mobile and EXPO Milano that spring and summer. 

Fast forward a decade. Now that the future is here, we thought it would be fun to look back at a few of our predictions to see whether the 2025 we envisioned has come to pass.

‍
👍 Cities are denser. Living spaces are smaller.

In 2015, we envisioned a future where cities would be more crowded and apartments more compact. Today, that’s more than an assumption—it’s a lived reality. Even in the US, a market not historically known for small living spaces, the average apartment size has decreased over the last decade. 

Around the world, micro-apartments and co-living arrangements have gained traction, and most of us think twice before bringing home large, single-function, bulky appliances that crowd precious real estate (think countertop ice makers or one-trick bread makers). 

In our design, we explored how the kitchen might blend into other spaces of the home. What if cooktops could completely disappear when not in use? What would happen if we stored and celebrated our food like we do our most important mementos? 

Now, the need to do more with less space is here. Not only do many IKEA products, such as mini kitchenettes and portable, hangable induction cookers, address this need, but modular kitchens, on the whole, are increasingly popular choices for their practicality, affordability, and instant nomadic style. 

👍 Food waste remains a pressing issue.

During in-home research with consumers and interviews with chefs, we observed how small oversights—a bag of forgotten spinach in the back of the fridge or confusion over expiration dates—could quickly add up to mountains of wasted food. In 2015, an estimated 31 percent of the US’s total food supply was thrown away. Food waste was one of the key areas we wanted to address in Concept Kitchen 2025. 

Back then, we designed a kitchen that keeps food visible and trackable, making it easy to use before it spoils. Open shelving with transparent containers put ingredients in plain sight, and a smart table recognized foods placed on its surface and suggested recipes to use them up. Another system tracked the freshness of foods, prompting timely action, while a compact composter turned unavoidable scraps into clean, odorless “pucks”—helping keep more food on plates and out of landfills.

Fast forward to today. Despite growing awareness and efforts to reduce food spoilage, households around the world still discard a significant amount of groceries. According to the FDA, US food waste is now estimated to be between 30 and 40 percent, resulting in more spoiled food reaching landfills than any other waste product.

 👎 People still use fridges—not induction-powered cooled pantries—to keep food fresh.

One of our more radical concepts? Eliminating bulky, energy-inefficient fridges from kitchens entirely, replacing them, instead, with induction-powered cooling technology embedded into pantry shelves. Food placed on these shelves in RFID-tagged transparent storage containers would automatically keep individual food items at just the right temperature. While this innovative concept didn’t make the journey to our current reality, more consumers today are buying glass-door refrigerators for their homes, which allow them to quickly see what food they already have on hand—a step in the right direction.

‍
👎👍 Pivoting sinks, compost pucks, and gamified recycling stations haven’t exactly taken hold, but mindful waste reduction strategies are more commonplace.

In 2015, the European Commission adopted a new Circular Economy Package, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released its “Towards the Circular Economy” report, both of which encouraged the transition from a “take-make-dispose” economic model to one where resources are kept in use for as long as possible. They encouraged us to consider how the kitchen might help recycle and keep materials in closed loops—or even turn waste into value.

Our prototype kitchen’s thoughtful water disposal system (a pivoting sink basin that tipped to one side to drain off toxic “black” water and to the other to siphon off undrinkable, but otherwise safe “gray” water that could be used to wash dishes or water plants) pointed to a future where resourcefulness is second nature. A built-in grinder beneath the sink squeezed water from organic scraps to form tiny compost pucks, eliminating the mess (and odors) associated with traditional compost bins and providing fertilizer for indoor herb gardens. A sensor-driven recycling station even tallied how well (or poorly) recyclables were sorted, rewarding responsible behavior with energy credits.

‍
While teeter-totter sinks, compostable discs, and recycling bins that keep score aren’t commonly found in today’s homes, there is a larger societal push to reduce single-use plastics, and the concept of mindful disposal is more mainstream, thanks to companies like IKEA, Ridwell, and others. Many municipalities now offer compost bins alongside recycling bins, and several brands, including Patagonia and Kiehl’s, run take-back programs. Reusing gray water has become more commonplace, and zero-waste advocates on TikTok share tips to minimize waste. Additionally, there are compost solutions that aren’t too far off from our puck concept. With food prices rising in many places due to inflation, tariffs, and climate change, our initial focus on reducing food waste has become even more urgent.

👎👍 We’re not all cooking on AI-enabled induction tables—yet—but our kitchens are “smarter,” and we still crave coziness.

Our biggest challenge with Concept Kitchen 2025 was blending futuristic technology with the timeless, tactile pleasure of cooking. Our smart table concept—where you could place leftover vegetables under a camera that would then project recipes and cooking tips—predicted how multimodal large language models (LMMs) could radically simplify cooking routines. Today, AI can interpret images and text simultaneously, so the idea of a camera scanning your broccoli and instantly serving up recipe ideas is more realistic than ever. These new LLMs make visual interactions more intuitive, allowing you to rely on a single seamless system rather than juggling multiple apps or devices.

Today’s everyday home chef may not be chopping broccoli on a full induction cooktop table like we envisioned—even though they do exist!—but discreet smart speakers, subtle sensors, and AI-driven apps that suggest recipes based on what’s in your fridge are everywhere. While kitchens have indeed become smarter, the technology we continue to choose for them feels more like a thoughtful helper than a sci-fi intrusion, enabling our kitchens to stay cozy and comfortable. Ultimately, it’s about harnessing technology to enrich our culinary experiences, rather than overshadowing the human joys of cooking and connecting over good food.

‍
👍 The kitchen continues to be the home’s social hub.

IKEA’s Concept Kitchen 2025 emphasized the kitchen as a communal, creative space—where a leftover tomato might spark a conversation, or a table’s camera might amuse and inspire friends who gather around it. A decade later, the kitchen endures as the heart of the home.

As part of our design investigations, the team also explored community kitchens for entire neighborhoods, ways to encourage kids to “play with their food,” and live-streaming cooking sessions via countertop cameras, indicating broader social, home-like experiences surrounding cooking. Today, cooking has indeed expanded its community dimension—from co-cooking apps to shared commercial kitchens—reinforcing the kitchen as a central gathering place, regardless of the level of technology involved.

‍
👍 Prototyping remains a powerful way to explore future possibilities.

The future moves in spirals. Sometimes we adopt expected changes in unexpected ways, and sometimes we revert to old habits. What remains true, looking back at Concept Kitchen 2025, is the power of prototyping to make the future real.

A decade on, the project remains a fascinating blueprint for the kinds of everyday cooking and eating moments we’d see in our homes. Sure, not all details, such as shelves with RFID temperature tags or transparent cooling containers, may have become a reality, but that’s not the point. When we envision a decade or more in the future, we’re looking to identify the trajectory of desirable behaviors, rather than specific objects or technologies (as they are bound to change and evolve). By transforming the behaviors we hoped to see into an experiential prototype that 250,000 people could physically explore in Milan—and millions more online—we brought the optimistic reality of 2025 one step closer to the lived reality of 2015.

And that's the real takeaway: prototyping’s tangibility enables us to step into the future. It provokes conversations. Inspires us to make better decisions every day. And helps steer us toward a collectively brighter tomorrow. 

Looking to do some futuring at your org? Get in touch. We'd love to help.