There are some really impressive pieces in Ikea’s new play-centred collection

There is a small furry chair, in blue or pink, designed by Carl Öjerstam – a reworking of the historic Ikea Mammut seat that echoes the magical interiors of Nanda Vigo. In the same way, the simplified cactus-shaped coat stand resonates with the one created by Guido Drocco and Franco Mello for Gufram, an icon of Italian radical design from the 1970s. And then there is a cordless lamp shaped like a seated giraffe – originally conceived on four legs, but raised because a child would have tipped it over too easily, the designers explain. Beside it, winged stools, storage pieces that look like little creatures, and a pencil holder that seems to come straight out of a Hayao Miyazaki daydream.

This is Grejsimojs, the new Ikea collection dedicated to play: 33 pieces where playful shapes, tactile surfaces and pop colours reinvent the idea of the domestic object, inviting whoever lives in the home – children, young adults, parents and everyone in between – to touch, imagine and interact. It is not a whimsical one-off: Grejsimojs is born from the findings of Ikea’s Play Report, a study showing that families and children want more play in their lives, and that the domestic sphere is the natural arena for it, reducing stress and bringing people closer together. “When we saw the results of the Play Report, we realised we had to do something extraordinary – the everyday was not enough,” says Maria Törn, Range Area Manager for Children’s Ikea.

Maria Törn, Range Area Manager for Children's Ikea

Updating the ordinary offer was not enough: “we felt the need to do something extraordinary,” say the Children’s Ikea teams. Two and a half years of work and a dozen designers later, the collection takes shape: a catalogue of intuitive micro-architectures, objects that don’t just “decorate” space, but ask to be inhabited in playful, physical and shared ways.

Grejsimojs answers to a concrete urgency: bringing play back home, not as an occasional activity, but as part of everyday life. “Families want more play in their lives, and especially in their homes – and the home is our natural territory,” notes Törn.

The Play Report, at the core of the collection, shows that families and children want more shared play moments. Yet they run into a lack of time, space and inspiration. This is the contemporary contradiction: we desire play, but lack the tools. This is why the brand chose not to add a few whimsical items to the existing range, but to design an entire collection capable of transforming the domestic environment into a relational space.

Maria Törn, Range Area Manager for Children's Ikea

The goal is not to entertain children, but to lower the barriers between adults and kids. “We hope parents and children can play together, on the same rug – even if for different reasons,” says Törn. The home – the parents’ room included – becomes once again a place of discovery, not just a functional container.

The second intuition is that objects do not need to “teach” anything – they need to invite. Here, design shifts from function to gesture. From decoration to action: sitting, moving, stacking, dragging, stroking, climbing, inventing. Shapes are deliberately recognisable and direct: you don’t need to understand – you just touch. Among the team of designers is Akanksha Deo, an Ikea designer who worked on the collection, convinced that “simplicity is the most difficult part”: eliminating all the superfluous so every piece leaves room for whoever uses it.

The rug that becomes a world, the winged stool that suggests movement, the giraffe-lamp that asks for empathy even before it gives light, the pouf that looks like it guards a treasure. “Every product is intuitive — children understood them instantly, without explanations,” says Törn. These are objects that do not simply sit in space, but trigger interactions. The balancing board, for example, was tested and reshaped until it reached the essential form we see: final simplicity, hidden complexity. “The simplest objects are often the most complex to develop — and making them accessible is the real challenge,” adds Törn.

In Grejsimojs, the object is no longer a neutral tool: it is a catalyst for micro domestic events.

No anti-tech manifesto, no alarmism. The designers say it clearly: the digital world exists, and children will inevitably inhabit it. “We don’t say digital is wrong – we know it’s part of life — but here we consciously chose the other world: the physical one,” says Törn.

Maria Törn, Range Area Manager for Children's Ikea

Grejsimojs engages the senses that interfaces don’t activate: weight, texture, the distance that must be bridged with the body. It is an alternative proposition, a form of slow design: not to compete with smartphones and tablets, but to counterbalance them.

A gentle yet explicit cultural stance: there are ways of spending time that do not pass through a screen. The collection does not demonise the digital realm, but rehabilitates manuality as a fundamental language. “Children need to feel the world, understand how heavy something is, learn to move through space,” Törn reminds us. An invitation to rediscover physicality as a form of connection, not nostalgia.

Grejsimojs is designed to be chosen by families, but it is not confined to childhood. This becomes clearest in one product in particular: the geometric cushions designed by Akanksha Deo. They are movable carpets, domestic planets, seating modules. On the floor, they become balance games; when stacked, improvised small architectures; scattered around, temporary islands to land on.

But their real strength lies elsewhere: they work just as well in a home without children. Deo uses them as the perfect illustration: hosting many people for dinner? Just pull them off the shelf, distribute them around the room and create informal seating islands. A slow meal on the floor? The supports are already there.

The most successful objects challenge the identity of their owner: they don’t ask who you are, but what you can do with them. In this sense, the cushions of Grejsimojs point towards an even broader future for the collection — one in which play is not an age, but a way of inhabiting space.

All images: Courtesy Ikea