imm cologne

Who says modern everyday life and sensuousness have to be at odds with one another? The “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” installation by Doshi Levien at the imm cologne 2012 aims to furnish evidence to the contrary. In an installation that is visionary not just at architectural level but in creative terms as well, the design experiment is developing into a fascinating study on modern ways of living.

“‘Das Haus’ combines the best of some very different worlds. It could be located anywhere on the planet.” Designer Nipa Doshi is alluding to an encounter between modern architecture and a world of contemporary forms on the one hand and the traditionally colourful aesthetics of Asia, the chaotic-seeming building tradition of Indian or Far Eastern megacities and the open, inward-facing interior culture of Morocco on the other. According to the plans of London design team Doshi Levien, many of these elements will be brought together in their installation in such a way that something totally new emerges: “It combines unconditional modernity with a sensuous lifestyle,” says Jonathan Levien of the blueprint for the imm cologne’s new design format: “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage”. His wife Nipa Doshi adds: “That’s precisely why we designed ‘Das Haus’ this way – because it doesn’t exist in this form. Only parts of it do.” weiterlesen…

How will we be furnishing our homes tomorrow? Will the bedroom still consist of a bed, bedside table and wardrobe, the office of a desk and filing shelves? And what will our furniture be like? Will we still have individual rooms at all, and always four walls? When it comes to furniture and interior design, being visionary is anything but easy.

And yet it is precisely these ideas about the future that ultimately spur the entire industry on to excel itself. When it comes to interior design, Koelnmesse has come up with a real sensation for the next imm cologne in January: its new “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” format.

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In January, Cologne will once again become the temporary design capital of Europe. But the design highlights aren’t restricted to the booked-out exhibition grounds – throughout the city, the trade visitors and design aficionadas who flock to Cologne from all over the world can look forward to a host of fascinating product presentations and exhibitions from the international design scene.

One of the biggest solo exhibitors is lifestyle label Esprit, which will be presenting its latest Home Collection at Cologne’s new event location “The New Yorker Dock.One” to coincide with the imm cologne. As in previous years, the MAKK (Museum of Applied Art), one of the city’s biggest design institutions, will also be showing an exhibition during the imm cologne, this time about exclusive furniture designed by architects over the last 100 years: “From Aalto to Zumthor”. And at another event that traditionally takes place in the cathedral city at the start of the imm cologne and can almost be considered an institution in its own right, renowned interior design and architecture magazine “Architektur & Wohnen” will be honouring an influential designer personality with its “Designer of the Year” award. weiterlesen…

A recently opened solo exhibition at the new branch of Paris’s Centre Pompidou shows a selection of the French brothers’ works from the last fifteen years. The more than 1,000 m² of space in Gallery 3 of the Centre Pompidou Metz, which was designed by architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastine, serves the brothers an enormous playground. The two designers have juxtaposed products from Vitra, Magis, Alessi, Established & Sons, Axor Hansgrohe, Kartell, Kvadrat, Cappellini and Ligne Roset without establishing any immediately obvious scenographic link between them. The only thing that seems to connect the works, installations and experiments is an element of playfulness. Perhaps it takes a hall of this size to reveal the extent to which the designers play not just with the scale of the objects and the viewers’ expectations, but with the space itself as well. weiterlesen…

The reason modernist architecture is so topical again today is that – perhaps for the first time ever – it is compatible with many people’s desire for open living spaces, a more flexible organisation of their lives and aesthetics with a bearing on the present. Today we want to live the way Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier proposed.

But also the way Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien depict in their installation for “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” at imm cologne 2012 (16.-22.01.2012) in Cologne: in an individual, lively home with cultural echoes. In a house that permits privacy and publicness, that connects the kitchen, eating and working zones, family and friends, areas of retreat and shared wellness experiences in an individual way.

The conventions that shape the way we live are changing along with our lifestyles, and architecture is enabling a growing number of people to try out new ways of living. The elimination of room boundaries and walls, the new desire for cosiness and the longing for more nature in the house are giving rise to a host of new possibilities for interior design. Today, anybody that wants to build a house for contemporary living needs more than a floor plan – he needs a concept.

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Anglo-Indian designer couple Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien will be creating a large-scale interior design installation at the imm cologne 2012. In the midst of the planning phase for “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage”, they talked to us at their London studio about their vision of individual forms of living, merging spaces and organically evolved houses.

Their design is a collection of interweaving functional spaces, rather like a collage of real architecture, different cultures and original imaginings. An interior perspective.

The brief for “Das Haus” is to create an artificial living situation in accordance with your own very personal wishes. Can you actually imagine a house in the middle of the trade fair?
Nipa Doshi: At the outset of the project we started thinking that our idea of a perfect house doesn’t actually depend on the object itself so much as on its surroundings. We want the house to capture a feeling. It’s located in the context of the fair, so we didn’t want a house that feels as if it’s standing by itself in the countryside. Instead, we imagine it as part of the socio-economic neighbourhood, as part of a community. We’re not thinking of a place with houses and beautiful gardens, but of a place with shops and workshops, a house full of life. The house isn’t in a residential area, it’s located in an urban context.

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Starting in 2012, the international interior design fair imm cologne will again be hosting a major design event: “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage”. The project focuses on the design of an artificial living situation within the trade fair – public and yet very personal living space designed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien. The London-based design team will be kicking off the new format in January 2012.

imm cologne will be live streaming the press conference and presentation of the project “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien on September 22nd, 2011 at 11.00 a.m. (London Time). The live stream can be viewed free of charge and will be available after the press conference for you to watch.

We will post the URL of the live stream shortly – feel free to follow us on Twitter or Facebook, where we will post the adress of the stream for you, too.

With its latest ad campaign, German furniture and furnishing concept manufacturer burgbad is breaking new ground when it comes to marketing sanitaryware. The drawings of French illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme are intended to appeal to a sophisticated target group for whom good style and humour are by no means mutually exclusive.

We generally encounter fittings, bathtubs, rainfall showers, washbasins and even toilets as highly polished stars set against a perfectly styled backdrop. Or as elemental water dispensers that bring us closer to nature. And indeed, the product collections from burgbad come across as sometimes architecturally reticent, sometimes sculptural-looking objects for the design-oriented bathroom. But in the new ad campaign, they are not the stars but merely the backdrop – for the people who live with them. “The product is an element around which the characters can play,” says illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme of the ad visuals he has created. “I’m not trying to isolate the product, but rather integrate it into the scene, as part of the character’s life.” weiterlesen…

Starting in 2012, the international interior design fair imm cologne will again be hosting a major design event: “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage”. The project focuses on the design of an artificial living situation within the trade fair – public and yet very personal living space designed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien. The London-based design team will be kicking off the new format in January 2012.

“Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” will show a structure created entirely in accordance with the guest designer’s ideas – architectural elements, interior and outdoor space – as well as arrangements of furniture and furnishing elements for an individually configured interior design. In the middle of the Pure Village hall, the trade fair will erect an approx. 180 m² platform to serve as an open stage for the project. “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” is thus both a designer portrait and a visionary blueprint, an example of how it is possible to create a world of one’s own that becomes an expression of one’s own personality.

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Josè A. Gandia-Blasco, owner and art director of the company that bears his name, is convinced that the visit to Cologne was well worthwhile – not only for the exhibitors from Spain but for the public as well: “Once again, my impression of the imm cologne was very positive and I was very surprised both by the new trends shown and the new products. The fair presented a good mix: there was something interesting and well worth seeing for all kinds of tastes.” In Cologne, Gandia Blasco, Viccarbe and Vondom were demonstrating various forms of Mediterranean flair with new-found self-confidence: a mix of café, patio and living-room.

The Spaniard per se seeks out closed, cool rooms to escape from the midday heat. Yet contemporary design is currently winning Europeans over to snug solutions for the space between indoors and outside: furniture and accessories that turn patios, courtyards and cafés into lifestyle-savvy living space. At the same time, designers like Mario Ruiz, Javier Mariscal or JM Ferrero are using both purist and organic aesthetic vocabularies to create furnishing elements for modern and fresh interiors. Companies like Gandia Blasco, Santa&Cole, Resinas Olot or Vondom have succeeded in making a name for themselves in this segment. Vondom, for instance, one of the leading Spanish design brands, has specialised in outdoor furnishing and lighting items made of synthetic resin; at the international interior design fair imm cologne, it was again presenting several new outdoor collections, including Tri-Turn by Harry & Camila and new products from the FAZ family by Ramón Esteve.

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