Eating, sleeping, working: In the future, all of this should no longer take place in fixed rooms, but simply where one just feels like it. That's how the vision of Truly Truly looks like. This year, the Australian-Dutch designer couple presented their idea of modern living at the International Furniture Fair in Cologne (IMM). "The House" is the name of the format used by IMM every year to invite designers to cover an area of 180 square meters. There are no limits and specifications.
Joel and Kate Booy, the heads behind Truly Truly, have chosen a hot topic: limitless living. In new buildings is increasingly being built open, entire illustrated books deal with the subject. At Truly Truly the bathroom is completely open in the room, over-sized plants and sliding walls around the bed offer flexible possibilities for subdivision.
The former rooms of the house have opened in an open living room with the kitchen in the center. How successful this spatial concept will be remains to be seen. There are virtually no walls, only a total of four zones - each designed to suit the mood and needs of the residents. There are, for example, low chairs to relax or a sofa that allows multiple seating directions.
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Photo gallery: Between Hygge and Hightech"Between high-tech and hygge" summarizes a recent study on behalf of the Federal Association of German housing and real estate companies, the housing requirements in the country. This is reflected in the furnishings: Plants, lighting and fabrics make living today a very plushy affair, even the cooker hood is clad here with old pink fabric. At some stands, it looks like in the cuddling room of a day care center.
The forms remain reduced
When it comes to materials, anything goes, the now-proven combination of natural stone and brushed metal, but also noble stained glass to neon cord. Lush fabric cushions, blankets and upholstery lie on light wooden furniture. In general: Where surfaces are not covered by substances, one usually sees natural stone or even wood.
Superfluous and ornament should be avoided at all costs. Midcentury chic wherever your eye is. There is nothing new to discover, which has the interesting effect that the great classics at Minotti and Cassita, at Knoll or even Vitra are among the highlights of this fair. Special editions promote the demand for old design: Thonet, for example, presents its coffee house chair 214, which was designed around one and a half centuries ago, in a new edition. The Hamburg design studio Besau Marguerre gave Thonet's bentwood chair model a new look.
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High tech is another promise of this IMM. And of course: where a surface is, there can be wiped. Electrical appliances can be connected to the smartphone or controlled without contact. Compared to the futuristic cinema of the sixties or seventies, there is still little science fiction here.
Breathable sinks
There are surprises in store for the kitchen - at least for those who have not spent some time with cooker hoods: with the models of yesteryear the exhibited specimens have nothing in common apart from their function. Kitchen art disappears now through chimney-like copper pipes, huge hanging lamps with integrated suction hoses, retractable flaps in the stove or even breathing sinks.
Because technology makes everyday life easier, but should not look like high-tech, there is also a lot of camouflage going on. Gas hobs are simply countersunk directly into the high-tech ceramic plate, which receives its marble finish with special printing. The company Porcelanosa makes the cooktops disappear completely by placing a stone worktop over an induction field.
The kitchen becomes the living room
The more important the kitchen seems to be in everyday life (see the living concept of Truly Truly above), the less it should look like cooking area. Anyone who runs over the kitchen in Cologne, wonders in many places: There is no kitchen. Apparently only tables, sideboards and wall units can be seen. But who opens this, who moves plates and doors, then finds everything you need.
"Reinforced in the offer are so-called pocket doors, ie doors that are pushed fully open in the open position in the sides of the cabinet and do not stand in the way," explains Volker Irle of the consortium The Modern Kitchen. The cooking area looks like there is no furniture at all.
But here, too, no trend without a counter-example: For the thematic focus "Future Kitchen", the Zurich-based designer Alfredo Häberli shows a mobile stove top, portable like a tablet. If necessary, it can be used at the table. Or you put them in the middle of the counter, as a mobile, to some extent modern version of the fireplace, which can be placed as needed, right where life is currently happening.