IKEA's Space10 Lab Imagines the Meatballs of the Future

IKEA's future living research lab Space10 is looking into what food of the future might look like.
Located in Copenhagen, IKEA’s Space10 is a research lab that imagines novel developments in the future of humans living and develops concept solutions that bring them closer to reality. With specialised teams of designers, artists, technologists, and makers, Space10 ideates and prototypes solutions for global challenges we are to face in the near future through workshops, exhibitions, design residencies, and collaborative projects.

With such an interconnected and convenient global food supply chain, it is often easy to overlook the pressing reality of food scarcity - especially when there’s a plate of food on your table. However, according to findings from the World Resources Institute’s ongoing Sustainable Food Report publications, the world will need 60 percent more food calories in 2050 than in 2006 as we approach a population of 9.6 billion. Two primary issues that need to be addressed are closing the gap between the amount of food available today and the amount required in 2050 and reducing agriculture’s impact on the environment.

To confront these looming issues, Space10 came up with a fun and visual concept that imagines the future of food. Through a neatly packaged series called Tomorrow’s Meatball, IKEA’s Space10 exhibits six unique dishes that reconfigure the way we think about food.

Why meatballs? Kaave Pour from Space10 says, “We used the meatball's shape and size as a canvas for future foods scenarios, because we wanted to visualise complicated research in a simple, fun and familiar way. There’s hardly any culture that does not cook meatballs - from the Swedish meatball, to Italian/American spaghetti meatballs to spiced up Middle Eastern kofta.”

However, these meatballs don't look like they come from any culture we know. From the Artificial Meatball to the Lean Green Algae Ball, the project’s concepts combine emerging technologies such as 3D printing along with new understandings of food supply chains to suggest out-of-the-box, refreshingly utopian menu offerings.

With the future of our world looking ever flippantly brighter or darker, innovative research labs like Space10 put brand resources into innovative solutions, shining the path towards a more optimistic future. While conceptual, these infectious ideas evince a hopeful mentality - we’re just waiting for them to disclose their Crispy Bug Ball recipe.