End of March IKEA will stop the production of Expedit shelves, which are particularly successful in Germany. This is hard on the EXPOneer project, because the whole exhibition conception is based on the Expedit shelves. The good news: There will be a replacement: Kallax. The compartments of Kallax will have exactly the same measures as the Expedit shelves. 

This is very good for the EXPOneer; it is possible to keep the basic concept of the quadratic content panels with the size of 33 x 33 cm. But there will be some additional changes: The colour white will be whiter – I definitely support this, since the Expedit shelves always looked a bit yellowed in front of a white wall. The width of the external frame will be a little smaller, in the past 5 cm, now in the case of the new Kallax series only 4 cm. This is supposed to look more modern - we will see. The shelves are said to be more stable for an even more favourable price. Both can be positive for our school projects, we will see details at April 1st, when it will be possible to buy Kallax. 

But there will also be a major disadvantage. IKEA will stop the shelf version with 5x5 boxes. This is really bad, because with its height of 185 cm it was the only shelf allowing a useful reading height for our exhibition projects; and the width of five boxes allowed sufficient space for placing the tables. As it will be possible to buy the new Kallax shelves we will develop a solution in order to use the 4x4 shelf, either by using a higher socle or by using a 1x4 or 2x4 shelf as a sub-construction. We’ll let you know!

Here, you will find more information concerning similarities or deviances between the Expedit and Kallax shelves: http://www.ikea.com/ms/de_DE/campaigns/expedit_kallax/index.html#expedit_kallax_05