Ikea is building a new, green city store in Vienna: there will be no parking, but the seven-storey building will have green balustrades and roofs with no less than 160 trees.
No furniture for sale
Ikea is working on a new store concept for the inner cities: a seven-storey branch is being built in Vienna, that will focus on ‘smaller’ items. There is no parking. If you do buy larger items, you can have them delivered to your home within 24 hours from a hub outside the city.
Because there is space available (neither parking nor storage space is needed for large items of furniture), Ikea provides a lot of new experience elements in the store, such as a hostel on the top two floors and a roof terrace. That terrace will also be accessible outside opening hours and should become a real public park.
Green facades
In addition, the shop will be extra ‘green’: aimed entirely at customers who come on foot or by public transport, the footpath has been made twice as wide and the new building has been moved back a few metres so that there is room for greenery on the facade. There will be large balconies on which a total of 160 trees will grow, which will not only keep the glass building cool but also purify the air for the surroundings.
The architects of the project also call the new building sustainable because it has a flexible design, so that it can easily find a new purpose, even if Ikea ever should move away from it. But these are concerns for tomorrow: first the construction has to be finished and the doors are expected to open in 2021.
