Neri&Hu, the Chinese design studio that specialises in contemporary architecture and interior design that “Challenges the accepted values of society,” has installed what it calls its vision for the “Home of the Future” at the Imm Cologne trade fair, which is taking place at this Koelnmesse GmbJ hall this week (19 to 25 January 2015). The installation is simply called “Das Haus,” and is created each year at the exhibition by a different designer or studio who is asked to use the space to express their own personal take on what they believe the future of domestic space will look like. If Neri&Hu are indeed correct, then the future is going to look incredibly cluttered!
The design questions the way in which people populate their homes with furniture and objects, and according to Lyndon Neri and Rosanna Hu, the company's leaders and namesakes, they wanted to use the project to draw a comparison between past and prospective future living environments by using their home city of Shanghai as an example. Neri said the project is “Meant to unsettle people,” because they want to challenge them so that they “Don't just see a trade fair with the most beautiful furniture and the best materials, but really begin to question where we stand today, especially in China.” He added that it seeks to ask “Whether we're using furniture in the right way? How much do we need? And what is it really, the home?”
Neri&Hu has installed what it calls its vision for the “Home of the Future” at the Imm Cologne trade fair
The Neri&Hu construction is laid out over two stories, the first Das Haus project to do so. It comprises five plywood stacks, painted black on the outside and built around a metal scaffolding. The stacks are placed close together on purpose to replicate the narrow alleyways found in the more densely populated areas of Shanghai, where the studio is based (they also have a studio in London). Visitors are given a specific route to follow through the exhibit, with the angles and placement of the wooden balcony carefully constructed to give the best possible views into sections of the wall that have been cut away. These small sections (rooms), have each been given a unique internal colour, and are purposely overpopulated with furniture and other objects, which aim to question the limits of each space.
The “Blue Room,” is a conceptual take on a bedroom, with three single beds and numerous stools filling the small room and spherical lamps places on and around the furniture. The “Yellow Room,” meanwhile, resembles a classroom, and features rows of desks and chair of different shapes and sizes, some of which are suspended by wires. The “Red Room” is the bathroom, and is perhaps the most striking of all, with two wooden bathtubs tangled up in a maze of copper wiring. There is also extra furniture placed between in stacks that is meant to create the outdoor area.
This year's Das Haus, which will remain in place until the event closes on January 25, is the fourth such project at Imm Cologne in as many years
This year's Das Haus, which will remain in place until the event closes on January 25, is the fourth such project at Imm Cologne in as many years. The first was realised by the London duo Doshi Levien in 2012, with Italian designer Luca Nichetto having a crack at it in 2013. Last year, Louise Campbell from Copenhagen, converged two shingle-clad houses for her design, with a 240-square-metre dwelling devoid of interior walls, with openings at each end rather than doors. This year's design, however, might very well be the most ambitious yet.
