CAN DESIGN ALLEVIATE LONELINESS?

IKEA Inspiring Talents tackles the loneliness of young people through design at the Madrid Design Festival 2024. From 14 to 25 February, in its space at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.

How can we plan to improve the reality that sees more and more young people suffering from loneliness? Can we design spaces to alleviate this feeling in environments such as the home, communities, neighborhoods, or schools?

According to the report “Loneliness in the 21st Century” by the University of Comillas, more than 21% of the Spanish population feels social isolation. This feeling, moreover, doubles among young people compared to other age groups: 31% of those under 30 say they feel lonely compared to 14.7% of those over 60 and 18% of those aged between 30 and 60.

As passionate about life at home and guided by its vision of creating a better everyday life for the majority of people, IKEA returns to the Madrid Design Festival to open a space for reflection on a very topical issue: loneliness and young people.

The Swedish company presents a new study that analyses the possible relationship between loneliness and the different environments that young people inhabit, to seek, through design, new formulas that contribute to improving this silent epidemic.

To this end, in a new edition of IKEA Inspiring Talents, which will take place in the context of Fiesta Design at MDF24, a series of design thinking sessions have been organized to work on this challenge with design experts and students from all over Spain. For three days, these multidisciplinary groups, led by the consultancy Soulsight, will devise design solutions that contribute to improving this social reality. The winning proposal will be replicated in an IKEA shop so that all visitors can see, first-hand, how design can be a tool to enhance human relations in different spaces and environments.

From 14 to 25 February, in its space at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, IKEA will also present an immersive exhibition designed by Manuel Delgado, strategic head of Interior Design at IKEA Spain, on this issue.

In 2023, the Madrid Design Festival created Fiesta Design in order to immerse the public in the design experience in a different and closer way. Due to its relevance and scope, the project became almost a “festival within the festival”. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza will once again be the meeting point where professionals, brands, and the public will have the opportunity to meet and interact in an environment of connection, experimentation, inspiration, and discovery, among exhibitions, installations, talks, and workshops.