New Trend exhibition "Future Interiors – Designed in Germany" at imm cologne 2020
Furniture World News Desk on
12/11/2019
imm cologne recently announced a new trend exhibition at the upcoming imm cologne 2020. The trend exhibition, located in the restructured Home theme world Home, demonstrates the broad number of services offered by German interiors brands and their core competences in the area of sustainability.
The "Future Interiors – designed in Germany“ exhibition initiated by the international interiors fair imm cologne demonstrates this vividly with product examples from the entire portfolio of the assortments represented in Cologne, from the stool to the fitted kitchen, and embeds the product stagings in an interior design suited to the trend.
The special event at the center of hall 10.2 is curated and linked with an attractive interior design by the trend expert and interior designer Katrin de Louw (Trendfilter). Divided into the sections of Universal Design, Ecological Materials, Sustainable Colour, Multifunctional and Long-Living Quality, the exhibition in January presents products from German manufacturers like Bali, Möbelwerke A. Decker GmbH, Hartmann Möbelwerke GmbH, Hey-Sign, Himolla Polstermöbel, Kare Design, Koinor Polstermöbel, Ponsel Polstermöbel, Schöner Wohnen, Venjakob and Wimmer Wohnkollektion on 150 m². The format offers the German furniture and interiors industry an attractive and inspiring platform for showcasing the strengths of German furniture design in the context of trends and mega-trends.
Solutions from Germany
With "Future Interiors – designed in Germany", imm cologne hopes to intensify the profile for interiors from Germany and particularly address foreign visitors from the furniture trade, project interiors and interior design segments. At the same time, German visitors should also be made conscious of what characterises German design and what benchmarks German interiors brands are setting for the features of relevance for the future. "imm cologne is doubtlessly an interiors fair with international ambitions", Claire Steinbrück, Director of imm cologne, clarifies, and adds: "Nonetheless, German design should also receive its own space in this international context". The exhibition curator Katrin de Louw explains: "The exhibition provides visitors with a quick excerpt of good, new, national products and makes clear that German design is pioneering, with qualities extending from durable quality, ecological materials and universal design to socially responsible production processes."
Promoting Sustainability with Colors
The products are presented between high, differently designed wall panels that convey intimacy without blocking vistas. The exhibition is supported by Hohenberger wallpapers and the just founded Colornetwork project, a service offering organised as a network of trend experts and companies for furnishers and interior designers for researching harmoniously coloured products.
This provides the exhibition at imm cologne with a very special colour concept. In the case of "Sustained Colour No.1: be rooted“, chosen by an expert committee from Colornetwork, this involves an earthy shade of brown, which is associated with warmth and nature, and which is compatible with nearly all types of stone and wood. "Future Interiors – designed in Germany" shows how well the shade is suited to such different materials and colors as copper and pastel colors, black metal and brass, or also aqua and modern accent colors. Colour is conceived of as sustainable here, and should prove how variable it can be in the material context. Used sustainably, colour can significantly extend the service life of products, because it is the band that holds furniture, material and design together, as the exhibition impressively demonstrates.
Design from Germany
Thanks to the high level of participation of imm cologne exhibitors, the special event "Future Interiors - designed in Germany!" will definitely be one of the highlights of Home, the newly structured and experience-oriented, tuned north section. Each of the five most important competence areas for German interiors brands worked out by Trendfilter, namely Universal Design, Ecological Materials, Sustainable Colour, Multifunctional and Long-Living Quality, will have a living area appropriately staged for the theme. The exemplary stagings will be comprehensibly explained for visitors by multilingual wall texts.
Multifunction
Where the flexible usage of furnishings is involved, the products shown surprise through their versatility. "Flexible usage begins in the mind and can, for example, go into series production with clever functional fittings", comments Trendfilter founder Katrin de Louw on the resourcefulness of German manufacturers. Strictly one-sided usage rituals are also examined for potential additional usage possibilities in the exhibition. Multifunctionality represents real added value for buyers and will further increase in importance against the background of increasingly rare, affordable living space in urban areas and the increase in single households.
Universal Design
Due to the demographic transformation, the theme of Universal Design is also a large growth market that products designed in Germany are already competently serving, as the examples in the exhibition show. "Nonetheless", forecasts Katrin de Louws, "it will be more important in future to develop attractive products that are sexy today and still function tomorrow." On the whole, according to Katrin de Louw, Universal Design must reinvent itself so that products for the older generation are attractive and state of the art. "In addition to the downaging taking place in our society, older generations are also more mobile and are active online. While fashion is not relevant for this target group, zeitgeist and design very much are."
Long-Living Quality: durable interiors
In the Long-Living Quality section, an open-plan kitchen-living room of the Decker company will illustrate how a kitchen is inserted into a living scenario in which the room functions increasingly flow into one another. Despite daily use, such furniture functions for up to 30 years and then often finds a new lease on life in the allotment garden hut or in the basement. "Furniture produced in Germany demonstrates an enormously high standard - from the material through fittings and additional functions to processing. The life span of furniture produced in Germany is leading worldwide", the trend expert Katrin de Louw confirms.
Ecological Materials
Especially the theme of materiality, to which the Ecological Materials section in the exhibition is dedicated, will increase greatly in importance in the coming years. The German manufacturers, as well as consumers, are once again on the whole trusting more in real wood products, especially in solid wood, as they are presented in this section of the exhibition. The focus is thereby on the regional procurement of wood, which is why many local types of wood can be seen in the exhibition. The challenge for industry and commerce lies in effectively transporting the added value of ecological and sustainable products.
A dark, elegant shade for the interior design of the coming years
The theme of colors must also be considered in the search for holistic and environmentally-friendly interiors solutions. With "Future Interiors – designed in Germany!", it will be demonstrated at imm cologne 2020 for the first time how colour can be conceived of sustainably, and how it retains its validity in the interiors segment longer as a result. "A 'Sustained Colour' is found in the zeitgeist of the coming decade, adapts repeatedly to new furnishing ideas and doesn't push itself into the foreground, but instead accompanies the ideas of the interior designers and furnishers", is how Katrin de Louw defines the idea of sustainable colouring. That a dark colour will define the "Future Interiors – designed in Germany“ exhibition at imm cologne in 2020 with "be rooted" is also due to the fact that dark colors are increasing in significance. The colour in any case lends the exhibition a sense of luxury and emotion – a new highlight for the new Home theme world and a point of attraction for Interior Professionals.
More about Koelnmesse: Koelnmesse is the world’s top trade fair organiser for the areas of furnishing, living and lifestyle. At the trade fair hub of Cologne, the leading international fair imm cologne as well as the trade fair formats of LivingKitchen, ORGATEC, spoga+gafa, interzum and Kind + Jugend rank among the internationally renowned and established industry meeting places. These fairs comprehensively represent the upholstered and case furniture segment, the kitchen industry, the office furniture sector and outdoor living as well as the innovations of the furniture supply industry. Over the last few years, Koelnmesse has specifically added international fairs in the most important fast-expanding markets to its portfolio. These include the LivingKitchen/CIKB in Shanghai, interzum guangzhou in Guangzhou and Pueri Expo in Sao Paulo. With ambista, the network of the interior decorating industry, Koelnmesse offers direct access to relevant products, contacts, competence and events. For more information, visit http://www.global-competence.net/interiors/