Something borrowed, something blå: Dalhousie enters student furniture market with DalKEA

(April 1; Halifax, NS) – Attention students: your days of manic Kijiji refreshing in the hopes of finding stylish apartment décor are over.

No, we’re not talking about the pending arrival of a certain Swedish furniture giant that Haligonians are treating like the second coming of the donair. Instead, it’s Dalhousie that’s swooping in to provide hip furniture at charmingly affordable prices.

Friday morning, the university announced plans to launch its first major furniture retail operation in 2017 — a new ancillary department that weaves together academic innovation, environmental sustainability and a pinch of not-so-subtle opportunism.

Meet: DalKEA.

Upcyling furniture for the future

The Dal-gold-and-blue building blocks for the DalKEA concept come from the popular “Dump and Run” event each spring, at which students and community members drop-off used furniture and other household items at Dal’s Studley Gymnasium to be re-sold.

“Our participation in Dump and Run is a great example of our commitment to sustainability and the classic ‘three Rs’ trifecta of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’” says Rochelle Öwen, director of sustainability. “But we felt we were missing a big opportunity by not leveraging the oft-forgotten ‘u’ in that equation: ‘upcycling,’ which means taking something ugly and de-uglifying it.”

DalKEA turns the annual Dump and Run into a year-round retail experience, one where Dal students — through coursework, co-op terms and campus employment — will transform second-hand hand-me-downs into furniture and stage-setting household items that strike a suspiciously Swedish balance between style, function and price.

“At Dalhousie, we offer a transformative teaching and learning experience, but why stop there? What about a transformative sitting experience, or a transformative kitchenware experience?” says Dal President Richard Flörizone. “Why be satisfied with sparking light-bulb moments of inspiration in our students when we could spark actual light bulbs as well?”

As for the new operation’s name, while it seems at first glance like an egregious rip-off, it’s actually an acronym: “DalKEA” stands for “Dalhousie Komfort, Ease and Affordability” and, according to its slogan, promises “‘Bjorn’ Again Student Furniture.”

Student comfort, student opportunity

The need for innovative, talented and readily-available personnel to help turn donated cast-offs into retrofitted DalKEA offerings is expected to be a major boon for student employment, particularly in co-op education. Expect to see students across disciplines involved — Engineering students working in new product development; Commerce students developing sales and marketing plans; Costume Studies students assisting in refabrication; and Law students helping deter legal action from entirely unrelated Swedish corporations.

DalKEA will also enhance the Dalhousie learning experience, as new courses will be developed to help students connect their classroom work to their storeroom work. Among the new offerings will be “Instruction Design 2110: The Silent Grace of the Cartoon Construction Assistant” and “Assembly 1000: Bolts for Dolts.”

For examples of the sorts of products the new store will offer, the first edition DalKEA catalogue includes:

• Foldable Adirondack Chair: The colourful Studley Campus icon now fits in your backpack, but still offers that classic “Hey look, I’m a tiny person in an oversized novelty chair!” experience.
• The Split-Seater: Couches divided into halves, sold separately, for better maneuvering through those pesky narrow apartment stairwells and thus avoiding friendship-shattering “THIS WON’T FIT, DAVE!” arguments.
• The Insta-Library: Fake books built into a real bookshelf — for when your collection of actual books just isn’t big enough to properly impress or intimidate your peers and colleagues.

Pricing for such items has not been set as of yet, but with operation’s non-profit vision, AVP Ancillary Services Heather Sutherlånd says students can expect "a retail experience that doesn't cost much 'Money Money Money' and embodies the spirit of ‘Take a Chance on Me.’”

An immersive retail experience

To host DalKEA, the university will be retrofitting Studley Gym into a manufacturing warehouse and full-service retail outlet, with free delivery to the Agricultural Campus in Truro. Dalhousie plans to hire the same architectural firm that designed its Life Sciences Centre, as that building’s maze-like interior has been preparing students for the twists and turns of immersive, big-box furniture retailer floor plans for more than four decades.

The university acknowledges there will be upfront costs for DalKEA, but the operation is projected to make back its sticker price — and then some — based solely on projected first-quarter meatball sales. There are also plans to hire a celebrity chef for the store’s restaurant; while President Flörizone hesitated to name names until the ink was dry on the contract, he hinted the successful candidate is well-known for his distinctive facial hair, unintelligible accent and predilection for flailing kitchen chaos.

DalKEA is expected to open its doors mid-2017, just ahead of some other major Halifax retail arrival. Total coincidence.

Happy April Fools Day!