Although they have doubled in size since 1960, houses are currently shrinking. Census data shows that the area of a house fell dramatically from 244 sqm to 217 sqm. People are living under the new motto: “living well with less.” For some, this is just enough to live. But, sometimes, we want even more space for our stuff. So, we dedicate one small space of the house’s total area to a storage place. Usually, we attribute it around 25 – 30 sqm. And because some of us are hoarders by nature, we come to the conclusion that these square meters aren’t enough to keep our memories safe. We take that 20 sqm for granted. Yet, there are people who look at this surface as a luxury.

This is the case of Rana, a Syrian mom who has four children to raise. Without money to rent a bigger and better place, the woman who was forced to move because of the war, had to settle down for a very tiny two-bedroom apartment in Damascus. There are hundreds of other families who live in similar conditions. People who don’t have money to buy a mattress or clothes for their kids.

Just like you, these people are always looking for options to make their home a better place to live. The only difference is that you can go to IKEA and buy pretty stuff for your apartment, alas these people have to be satisfied with what they already have or with what they receive from different charities.

Now, we didn’t mention IKEA and charities by coincidence. We did it on purpose to bring up to your attention a campaign the Swedish furniture manufacturer did a while ago in partnership with the Norwegian Red Cross. Known as “25 m2 of Syria,” the project, courtesy of advertising agency POL, took shape in one of Ikea’s stores in Norway. Customers came in to find inspiration for their own homes but instead, they have found a room that’s the exact same replica of the house Rana and her kids live in.

The awareness campaign that highlights the horrible living conditions of Syrian refugees is the topic which we are going to focus on during our weekly #ThrowBrandThursday column. Instead of admiring typical Ikea rooms, customers were greeted with a room built entirely from concrete blocks. The room, created to bring the life of people in the war-torn country into the forefront, gives clients a realistic glimpse of how Syrians’ life looks like. “It would have been easier to just put up wallpaper, but it wouldn’t have felt the same,” said the team. “We wanted the apartment to be as close to reality as we could.” That’s why, they used heavy concrete to build the wall, saying that they wanted to create something as close to reality as possible.

“We had been working with the Red Cross for months, so we had a lot of footage from Syria,” said the creative agency. “But no matter how emotional it was, nothing got close to the experience of visiting people in a war zone.” The artists behind the project continued: “We realized we could give Norwegians that experience at IKEA. At the one place where you think of and plan the future — the apartment served as a physical reminder of how lucky we are.”

The 25-sqm-room hosted a few beds made from sponge mats and old blankets. A few toys were thrown away on the “beds.” There were also a couple of illustrations hanging on the walls. Each of these items was accompanied by the famous Ikea labels. But instead of displaying the price of the object it represented, the tags told the stories of such people trapped in a world where there is nothing but war. Most importantly, each tag invited customers to help these people by financially supporting them.

Credits:

Client: IKEA, Norwegian Red Cross

Agency: POL