The organisers for the recently held 2015 IMM show in Cologne have released what they consider the top 10 trends from this year’s show. Here we focus on two – the link to the full report is at the end of the article.
“What’s the new trend colour? Has the “Cosiness” trend seen last year evolved into one of the megatrends of the imm cologne 2015? And how important are personalised favourite places within the home? Design journalist and trend researcher Frank A. Reinhardt identified a total of 10 trends and summed them up in a daily presentation at the imm cologne 2015’s lecture forum “The Stage”.
05 The Bathroom as a Fully-Fledged Part of the Home
Places where life congregates: a crossroads during rush hour, a pub during the World Cup, the kitchen during parties. It’s time to embrace another hub of everyday life which, whilst it might not always be grand, is no less central and communication-friendly: the bathroom. Analogue or digital – the bathroom is increasingly becoming a nerve centre within our modern interiors.
Part of the reason why demand for large showers, double-ended baths and double washbasins is growing is that the bathroom’s popularity as a jointly used room is growing too – and not only amongst families. Today the bathroom serves not just as a place for personal maintenance but for health and relationship maintenance as well.
Accordingly, people aren’t only cuddling on the sofa, they’re snuggling up in the bathroom too. Or on the sofa in the bathroom. And if the bathroom is equipped not just with a sauna but with a fireplace as well, the dream of a luxury bathroom is complete. What better response could there be than to cater to the desire for more cosiness by creating space for seating, fitness equipment and more room to move in general? Room for playing children, yoga exercises, press-ups, bookworms and glorious relaxation. It doesn’t matter whether the space is used by one person on their own or by several people at the same time, because luckily there’s still a key in the lock if you want to be completely alone for a change. It is a room of almost unlimited possibilities that are still waiting to be discovered.
06 Digital Comfort
Digital offerings for the networked home are booming: nowadays there are apps for adjusting the central heating, online solutions for keeping an eye on fire alarms, cameras, motion detectors and even personalised weather stations. But that’s just the beginning: in House 3.0, every single room will be digitised. All the electrical appliances communicate with the owner’s tablet or smartphone, the digital shopping list is linked with the online supermarket and the recipe generator knows exactly what food is available in the house and spits out a suitable recipe. In the bathroom, the digital revolution has already become reality to some extent. Every member of the household can call up his or her individual shower programmes: eventually, the shower fittings have a better idea of whether somebody prefers a hot or cold shower or favours an invigorating spray pattern over a more relaxing option than the person who actually owns the bathroom.
Touchless fittings are playing an increasingly important role in private settings, and shower toilets with a built-in bottom cleaner, heated seat and integrated radio are becoming ever more popular in the northern hemisphere too. And it’s probably only a question of time until the toilet has a direct online link to the doctor’s office and provides regular updates on users’ health data as well. There are apps for raising and lowering desks, opening and closing garage gates or tilting and illuminating sofas. Dining tables fold up automatically, wall cabinets open at the wave of a hand, and in future washbasins will probably even be able to adapt to the height of whoever happens to be using them.
Fans of the “quantified self” movement can even avail themselves of a bracelet-like fitness tracker in order to analyse their vital signs and sleeping habits. On the other hand, they might find they benefit more from a decent bed and a brisk evening stroll. Even so, ergonomic furniture and adaptive systems can certainly help make day-to-day life easier – especially for the elderly. Ultimately, however, there’s a very fine line between the sense and nonsense of digitising the house and home, man and his media.”
The full link is:- http://www.trendletter.info/en/imm-cologne/interior-design-contract-business/01-2015/3/
I know some of you went – have a read of the full report with images and let us know your thoughts
