Page 46 - HW1021

global eyes
IKEA’s
“little boxes” approach comes to the UK
IKEA AND GLOBAL scale building company Skanska have been building homes in Scandinavia for over 20 years under the BoKlok brand.
Indeed the relationship goes back as far as the 1990s with the Live Smart low-cost home project.
Boasting an impressive portfolio
of 14,000 BoKlok homes in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, now their modular approach to building affordable housing has come to the UK.
The BoKlok on the Brook development in Bristol (photo top right) offers a choice of houses and apartments, set within green areas and playgrounds, while the brook that gives the development its name will also benefit from extensive regeneration.
When the project was announced in December last year, over 2,000 people registered their interest, with sales phases this year seeing to all 94 homes reserved or sold.
As here, home ownership is a growing area of concern in the UK but BoKlok is set up to help first-time buyers by requiring only a 5% deposit and offering an interest- free loan to cover up to 20% of the costs.
New owners also receive a £300
IKEA voucher, two hours with a free handyperson, and a 1.5 hour session with an IKEA Interior Designer.
All BoKlok houses follow a “Scandinavian modern design approach” meaning light and spacious, “simple, functional, bold and playful” – classic
IKEA in other words – with the BoKlok on the Brook homes offering two different themes, one monochrome and the other with more neutral, earthy tones.
Sustainability is a central part of the BoKlok ethos, with timber frames and prefabricated in factories, rather than fully constructed on-site.
With less than 1% of leftover materials thrown away, BoKlok’s carbon footprint is said to be less than half that of a normal build on top of which the houses are “delivered in half the time”.
Internal features are designed to minimise heat loss, promote efficiency and save water.
Having proved that BoKlok can work outside of Scandinavia, now there are further plans in place for several British projects, starting with BoKlok on the Lake in Worthing, Sussex, offering lakeside apartments not far from the city centre.
www.boklokonthebrook.co.uk www.boklokonthelake.co.uk www.skanska.co.uk
44 NZHJ | OCTOBER 2021
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz