Space, Man: Domotex 2018

In designing spaces, it is now easier than ever before to draw inspiration from current trends, and from different styles and cultural influences. The spectrum of choices is great, as is the aspiration to dispense with any prescribed norm and rather find solutions that reflect our personal preferences. With its overarching keynote theme UNIQUE YOUNIVERSE, the world’s leading trade fair for carpets and floor coverings, DOMOTEX, puts forward a new concept that follows this trend and offers room for new perspectives.

Many manufacturers are already taking the development from mass to individual production into account in their product ranges. As put by Bernhard Reinkemeier, an executive in the area of interior decoration: “In the future, there will be less and less acceptance of uncoordinated mass merchandise by customers. Instead, they want their specific wishes to be taken seriously and addressed by producers.” Stephan Naacke, a manufacturer of needled carpets who also offers his customers individually coordinated products explains: “As a consequence, the search for the optimal possibility and presentation of the respective solution will be given yet greater emphasis, as these new options will have to be quickly and attractively shown to the target groups.”

The next DOMOTEX, in January 2018, will demonstrate how this can be done. The fair’s keynote theme, UNIQUE YOUNIVERSE, will find expression first and foremost in Hall 9, in the special area Framing Trends, which will comprise four different modules. Young, up-and-coming designers and artists will exhibit here along with well-known floor covering manufacturers and interior design companies. This marks a move by the organisers away from mere product exhibition, to the presentation of comprehensive spatial concepts. The special attraction of the new format lies in its freedom of presentation and its bringing together of different trades.

In the fair’s central module, Flooring Spaces, established companies in the flooring industry will present themselves in individual, creative ways far removed from the classical exhibition stand aesthetic. The module Living Spaces will serve as an aid to the imagination, with whole rooms conceived in collaboration with interior designers. The complete spatial concepts realised here will include not just the floor design, but the wall design and furnishing of the space as well. An open and playful approach to the keynote theme will be demonstrated by the complementary module Art & Interaction, in which freely conceived presentations by artists and designers await the visitor.

The module NuThinkers will exhibit decidedly unconventional designs and new perspectives while providing a platform not only to young design professionals and start-ups, but also to design students. This look at the work of budding young designers, or, more precisely, design schools, is highly worthwhile, as it promises a view of experimental concepts and unusual ideas. After all, where else does one find the opportunity for such free experimentation and visionary development? Three institutions of design education will be represented with wide-ranging projects on the theme of individualisation.

In Innovative Flooring, for example, interior design students from Hannover University will exhibit floor coverings that use renewable resources or draw from concepts from the plant and animal worlds. These consciously visionary prototypes will be presented in the context of a research laboratory that illustrates the work process. This will stand in contrast to an investigation in which students from the master’s degree course in interior design at Mainz University grapple with digital production technologies. They will introduce Individual Motion Space, virtual reality software that they have developed as a means of creating spaces in real time through the motion of the body.

Students from the product design department at HBKsaar in Saarbrucken have submitted twelve projects in applying to the fair. Their designs address the topic of individualisation in the form of modular systems or using modern 3D printing technology. A jury headed by architect Peter Ippolito will select five finalists to be included in the upcoming DOMOTEX and to receive subsequent support in the search for suitable manufacturers for the realisation of their designs.

The new DOMOTEX concept will bring established companies together with young talent in Hall 9, providing them with a large number of innovative presentation possibilities. This meeting of experienced designers and companies and young visionaries will additionally make for an exciting exchange that can be deepened in the fair’s offerings of talks and guided tours. Visitors can thus look forward to a multifaceted and, above all, inspiring programme next January.

© Architonic

Submit your unique creative concept by July 20, 2017 and earn the chance to secure one of twenty-four spots at Domotex 2018.