Putting IKEA manuals into augmented reality, this phone app lets buyers scan their product’s barcode, then swipe to follow steps in realtime against the actual backdrop of the room being used for furniture construction. Developed by Toronto designer Adam Pickard, AssembleAR uses 3D modelling coupled with post-production editing to recreate the building experience.

Pickard was inspired by the IKEA Place app that allowed people to see what specific pieces of furniture would look like in their own home, as well as the frustrations sometimes associated with building the company’s signature flat-pack systems.

The other app, he says, “made me think about how this technology could be used for more complex tasks, the IKEA assembly manual seemed the right place to start. Even though it’s well designed, people often struggle with the self-assembly – it can even be so bad that there are professionals who can be hired to do it for you.”

Technically, while the focus of the app is IKEA, it isn’t an official product of theirs, and could be expanded to encompass other furniture makers. It does, however, draw on the IKEA manual aesthetic and process, adapted in Cinema 4D but rendered to look much like the original instruction sets.

As an added perk, though, swiping through the first few steps can show you how much space you’ll need to set aside in order to lay out construction materials and tools (since these illustrate the initial unboxing and laying out of parts).

Between swipes, each page details the elements (surfaces, legs, connectors, etc…) needed in a give step, designed using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. While others have adapted IKEA instructions to make them more clear, the focus of this app is to stick to the prescribed route but grasp it in a three-dimensional way.

Buying a piece of IKEA furniture is generally a bit of a gamble in terms of potential complexity, but these clever joints are designed to radically simplify and speed up the process across the board.

The so-called “wedge dowel” makes it possible to put together wood products without bolts or screws, hex keys or screwdrivers. The ribbed connector and associated slot lets large objects remain flat-packed for shipping then fit together for long-term durability (without any glue or loss in structural integrity).

Historically, some IKEA items have come pre-assembled but at a size that makes them hard to transport. Other smaller items can pack flat but demand a dizzying array of little parts and associated tools. This single joint is letting the company replace dozens of metal fittings for certain sizable items.

The company first started using the dowel system in its Stockholm cabinet series (above) as a test, but now plans to roll it out across its furniture lines, moving next to the Lisabo table. What used to take a half hour can now be connected with these wedge joints in three minutes.

And it is not just a function of assembly: these joints make it easier to take things apart again, making them particularly useful in a day and age where people move frequently for work and other reasons. Some of their furniture lines are expected to adopt the wedge joint entirely.

Combining elements of IKEA ingenuity and their own classic line of modular toys, Meccano (makers of Erector Sets) is now offering a new type of do-it-yourself furniture modeled on their own miniature for-kids equivalents.

Made in France, the Meccano Home furniture series involves the same sorts of struts, surfaces, connectors and bolts found at smaller scale in their toy line, a kit-of-parts approach letting you build then rework any domestic object you desire, reusing pieces along the way.

Currently sold in sets, you can start out with a single piece then use the modules to make something entirely new or combine elements from other packages. Twenty different pieces help create sufficient consistency while also providing variety – there are a lot of options but no risk of losing a ‘rare’ part that could be more difficult to replace.

Flashy colors and a nostalgic aesthetic aside, the bigger picture here is a powerful one: a world in which we no longer scrap or sell our used furniture, but instead cannibalize the parts, storing them for future use or re-purposing them on the spot into new furnishings.

Comprised of 19 shipping containers, this record-breaking restaurant has reclaimed a riverside wasteland in the River Arts District of Asheville, North Carolina, turning a brownfield site into an eatery accessible by boats, buses, bikes, pedestrians and, of course, cars.

The Smoky Park Supper Club was put together in just a few days, its various modules modified offsite then shipped in by truck for assembly. The project’s architects boast that energy cost of melting down used containers is close to 20 times what it takes to simply adapt them for reuse.

Aside from the cost and power savings, using cargo containers as building blocks makes them easy to transport and obviates the need for construction workers, material trucks and other traffic that can cause consternation in the neighborhoods through which the building pieces pass.

The restaurant itself features a “local farm-to-table menu built around wood-fired based cooking and classic American fare that chef Rosenstein describes as simple, direct, and live-fired.” It will also showcase local art.

Leveraging the best features of available 3D printers and the materials they can print, this kit-of-parts approach opens up an amazing array of possibilities for do-it-yourself furniture construction and could be the beginning of a paradigm shift, informing the future of how we understand and make household objects.

Studio Minale-Maeda presented their Keystones system at Milan, using elegantly simple table and coat rack designs to show off the potential of this connective system.

Their core idea is that the larger wooden pieces can be flat-packed more easily for shipping. Customers can then complete the assembly process using included or locally-printed pieces. Still, the potential of this approach goes well beyond that system as such.

There is really no reason to limit the process to a ship-and-print combination. With a similar but open-source variant, would-be buyers could take off-the-shelf dimensional lumber and construct their own furniture effectively from scratch. Perhaps unintentionally, the simple and standardized shapes of the components shown here already suggest such potential implicitly – at most a few cuts would be needed for the table, if even that.

Regardless, the solution-as-presented is quite crafty, whatever its potential future might be – it leverages the strengths of 3D-printed plastic (rigidity with flexibility), uses strong triangular shapes for structural support (like trusses) and requires only the most basic tool to tighten the finished product (a screwdriver).