Cologne 2013: Venetian designer Luca Nichetto is to create an installation representing his ideal home for the Das Haus installation at trade fair imm cologne in January.
The first Das Haus was created by London designers Doshi Levien for this year's event and you can see what they came up with in our earlier story.
The next imm cologne takes place from 14 to 20 January 2013.
See all our stories about Luca Nichetto »
See all our coverage of this year's imm cologne »
Here's some more information from the organisers:
After its successful premiere in 2012, “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” is set to continue at the imm cologne 2013. In Luca Nichetto’s “Haus”, everything revolves around a centrally located living room that is intended to become the centre of a sustainable way of living that integrates nature.
The premiere of the new design installation format at the imm cologne was a huge success for both the trade fair and the designers. As guests of honour, designer couple Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien had the unique opportunity to blaze a trail for the future development of the series with their interpretation of this innovative new assignment. And that is precisely what they did: in their hands, “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” became a crowd-puller that fully justified its location in the midst of Pure Village, the trade fair’s lively forum for interior design. In particular, the new conceptual approach of adopting a less abstract stance than previous formats and instead aiming to furnish the artificial architectural framework in lifelike fashion was welcomed across the board.
“Of course ‘Das Haus’ is about tendencies in current product and interior design as well,” says the imm cologne’s Creative Director Dick Spierenburg, summing up the public interest in a nutshell, “but what really makes this format so interesting for visitors and the public is that it is filtered through the personality of the guest designer.”
This time round, the guest designer is from Venice: Luca Nichetto, who comes from the famous island of Murano and has been strongly influenced by the glasswork of its craftsmen, sees himself as an autodidact. He is famous for doing things his own way. And so he has remained loyal to Veneto and the region’s infrastructure of design producers and subcontractors, a network that is rapidly gaining international significance. In 2006 he founded his own design studio in Venice’s Mestre Harbour, opening a second studio in Stockholm in 2011. His company develops designs for everything from sofas, chairs, office furniture, lamps and carpets all the way to glasses, vases and kitchen accessories. He is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after young designers in Italy and collaborates with a multitude of international brands, including Bosa, Casamania, Cassina, De Padova, Established & Sons, Foscarini, Fratelli Guzzini, Glass, Globo, Italesse, Kristalia, La Chance, MG Lab, Moroso, Offecct, Salviati, Skitsch and Tacchini. It is, he says, his experiences with the design culture that permeates everyday life in Sweden that motivate him to combine the modern, functional and democratic design philosophy of Scandinavia with the emotional, flamboyant tradition of Italy, which is geared towards craftsmanship just as much as it is towards speed. As in 2012, the imm cologne has thus selected a representative of the younger generation of designers who nevertheless has sufficient experience to largely furnish even an extensive living space installation like “Das Haus” with his own products.
With his plans for “Das Haus”, Luca Nichetto wants to pursue his growing interest in sustainable design. What particularly appeals to him about the project is the possibility of conducting a holistic experiment that goes far beyond the scope of pure product design. “Nature is often regarded as a combination of different elements located outside. Occasionally nature is there just to accomplish decorative functions, thus losing its vital essence and characteristics. When I think about the development of our contemporary human lifestyle, keeping in mind the objects I’ve designed, I imagine a house with a central ‘living room’ like a beating heart,” reveals Nichetto. He compares “Das Haus” with a small planet where the living room becomes as important as the Amazon Rainforest is for the earth: “A green lung that helps us live”. His “Haus” will thus become a study of the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm – an idea that draws its inspiration from a short film by Ray and Charles Eames entitled “Powers of 10”. “All the rooms will be linked to this ‘Green Heart’, which will transform my house into a totally eco-friendly container, with natural features incorporated into the high standard of living that ‘Das Haus’ provides for its inhabitants.”
At the next imm cologne in January 2013 Pure Village, where “Das Haus” is located, will be changing floors and moving to Hall 3.1, along with the D3 Design talents exhibition and the lecture forum “The Stage”. Pure Village was launched in 2010 as a conceptual and spatial extension of the Pure segment. With its systematically planned trade fair architecture and extended interior design offering, it has proved an ideal addition to the large-scale brand presentations in Hall 11. Under the title Pure, the imm cologne brings together presentations by brand-name manufacturers from a wide variety of segments who feel a special commitment to design. Anybody who wants to get an idea of the latest original interior design ideas and avant-garde designs from the wide spectrum on offer at the imm cologne will find what he is looking for here. The great demand for premium exhibition space calls for targeted expansion of the Pure format. The imm cologne 2013 will therefore see the addition of a third Pure element: Pure Editions, a platform for creative brands with visionary products and product concepts.
.