Wiebke Braasch

Growing up in Lübeck, Wiebke spent countless hours in her father’s workshop. Wood was her favourite hands-on material, although she also enjoyed creating with cardboard and paper. “I remember making a multi-storey hotel, trying to figure out the details – like how to attach string to tiny paper blinds so I could pull them up and down,” she recalls. At school, she took to perspective drawing early on, filling her sketches with objects and furnishings.

In 1998, after finishing a one-year carpentry course, Wiebke began higher studies in communication design. “I often peeked into the classrooms where they worked on industrial or furniture design, and knew I had to try that too,” she says. Eventually, she assembled a programme that combined several disciplines, and in her final year she interned at IKEA in Älmhult, Sweden. Around that time, the 2003 IKEA PS collection Unlimited Play was released, and its focus on children and their needs inspired Wiebke’s graduation project. “The challenge was to make something fun and playful in the eyes of children while also meeting the tough safety requirements,” she explains.

Two of Wiebke’s graduation concepts – a swing and a slide – were picked up by IKEA for production. Another early IKEA project was created on the factory floor in Poland – the BASISK series of lamps with birch bases and glass shades. When it was released in 2005, Wiebke had relocated to Sweden and was working as an in-house designer at IKEA in Älmhult. Looking back, she credits the early trust IKEA placed in her for boosting her confidence and giving her the courage to experiment.

Becoming a Scandinavian ambassador through design felt natural to Wiebke. She loves the simplicity, natural, honest materials and clean lines – yet often tries to add a twist that marries tradition with modernity. Her inspiration includes the 19th-century Swedish artists Karin and Carl Larsson, who believed a home did not have to be perfect. “It should be shaped by what suits you and the family rather than to impress.”

The 2012 IKEA PS collection encouraged designers to update classic IKEA designs with new materials and functions, and improve sustainability. Wiebke chose to reinvent designer Bengt Ruda’s iconic CAVELLI armchair from 1958. “I thought it was such a cool piece, almost insect-like in shape. But I had to work hard to give it a modern look while keeping the price down and enhancing circularity.”

First, Wiebke considered changing the original teak-stained red beech to another wood type, but in the end she stripped everything back to its essence. Opting for a lightweight, permeable metal mesh for a “skeleton” chair, she made it usable both indoors and out, and also stackable. This lowered production and shipping costs, improving sustainability. “I think Bengt Ruda would have liked this hommage to CAVELLI,” she says.

Wiebke’s design process usually starts with a simple pencil sketch, before moving on to 3D digital design tools and prototype building in the model workshop. She is particular about getting size and proportions just right, using the Le Corbusier set of measurements designed to create furniture and other things that feel naturally comfortable and balanced for human beings.

After more than a decade as an in-house designer, Wiebke switched to another forward-looking role at IKEA between 2016 and 2018. As a creative innovator, she helped development teams to explore future scenarios for their range. Since 2019, she has been working on both design strategies and product design as a senior in-house designer.

Wiebke usually works with a team of experts, from product engineers to product developers. She is passionate about collaboration between different disciplines and suppliers, as this enables her to combine beauty, function, sustainability and an affordable price for IKEA products. “It’s in the design process that you have the biggest impact on a product’s quality and lifespan. I got very excited when sustainability was added as the fifth pillar of the IKEA Democratic Design concept in the early 2000s. Since then, the focus on circularity topics such as repairability, separability and recyclability has increased a lot. But we still have a way to go, and I’m here for it. It’s about all of our futures.”