ideal house cologne - zaha hadid. imm cologne 2007

ideal house cologne - zaha hadid. imm cologne 2007 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................

ideal house cologne
imm cologne
international furniture fair, cologne, germany
15 - 21 january, 2007
http://www.imm-cologne.com

now in its fifth year, this ideal house installation features living
spaces designed by the london based architect zaha hadid
and naoto fukasawa, who worked for many years as the
creative director of muji, japan’s best-known furniture design
centre. the annual event calls for use of a cube as the basic
structure. visitors can walk through the rooms and have an
interesting experience that will lead them to re-assess their
view of the many ways in which a home can be designed.

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zaha hadid
approached this cube as a huge block to be hollowed out
and morphed into a charming sequence of rooms that lead
into one another and also open up wide to the outside.
‘we experimented with several different techniques before
coming up with a final design’, says hadid. ‘first, we strongly
manipulated the outer form, but we later returned to a
precision-like cube. design then focused on the inner windings
and the complexity of the cavities’.
compared to the more open structures of fukasawa’s project,
hadid's ideal house retains the traditional form of the home
as a unit and protective shell. the two-story structure has no
roof, the walls and furniture appear to grow directly out of a
floor that in some cases is totally uneven, and the ceiling is
an arched sky. the inside and outside, the top and the bottom
- everything blends together seamlessly.
‘what we created is not so much an 'ideal house'
as a snapshot of our vision and understanding of how
people will live in the future’ says zaha hadid.
visitors gain entry via a cavity-like stairway to a gallery that looks
down on the ground floor and is furnished with an oversized
bed. some of the furnishings are completely new pieces,
and all of them were designed by hadid. the liquid-like impression
of the rooms is further enhanced by the mirroring and reflections
in the cube, while hadid's furniture function as an element
of spatial structure too.