Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ikea Refugee Shelter Entering Production

Posted by Soulskill on from the ships-with-9-randomly-chosen-and-superfluous-bolts,-screws,-and-dowels dept.

jones_supa writes: Ikea's line of flatpack refugee shelters are going into production, the Swedish furniture maker announced this week. The lightweight Better Shelter was developed under a partnership between the Ikea Foundation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and beta tested among refugee families in Ethiopia, Iraq, and Lebanon. Each unit takes about four hours to assemble and is designed to last for three years — far longer than conventional refugee shelters, which typically last about six months. The product is an important tool in the prolonged refugee crisis that has unfolded across the Middle East. The war in Syria has spurred nearly 4 million people to leave their homes. The UNHCR has agreed to buy 10,000 of the shelters, and will begin providing them to refugee families this summer.

4 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Part of a more insidious plan... by hilather · · Score: 4, Funny

    To sell Allen keys at premium at refugee sites.

  2. Long lasting by taylorius · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Designed to last for 3 years". Impressive, that's about a year longer than their normal furniture.

    1. Re:Long lasting by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's all designed for European and Asian body-weights. Put that stuff to regular wear in the U.S and it's gonna buckle under the weight quicker, that's just how it is. But I agree they could put some more thought into the products they sell over in the U.S.

      I am unaware of the UNHCR dealing with American refuges. I'm sometimes a little out of the loop but I thought I would have heard of that by now. Is it that bad in Texas these days?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Re:Ikea by Tom · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's a meme, but also a lie. As IT people especially, we can take a big hint from IKEA in this regards. Their documentation is short, mostly visual, always step-by-step and gives the user exactly the information he needs, with none of the unimportant blabla that many blow up many other documentations from the necessary 3 pages to the actual 30.

    If the instructions for Windows were made by IKEA, thousands of IT support people would be out of jobs because users could actually do simple tasks by themselves.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org