Explore The Story of IKEA

Cushion filling in a tube

An expansive experiment

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In this video clip, Gillis Lundgren provides the enthusiasm and the practical demonstration. His friend and colleague, Ingvar Kamprad, is more sceptical, yet still hopeful about possibly saving millions on transport costs.

In the 1980s, designer Gillis Lundgren came up with an ingenious idea that would save space and costs when transporting cushions. Working with chemists, IKEA would develop a new type of expanding insulation material that could quickly grow to 35 times its original size. This would enable customers to fill everything from scatter cushions to sofa cushions with soft padding.

It became one of many bold experiments that didn’t succeed in practice, but still perhaps paved the way for other, more feasible, ideas.