Having started out as purely a marketing trade fair for floor coverings, DOMOTEX has since become the world’s number one event for trends, innovations, and design. More and more creatives flock to Hanover every January—including designers, interior designers, and architects.
DOMOTEX will once again set the upcoming season’s trends by showcasing all the latest ideas and innovations in flooring design. Visitors to the show will also find plenty of inspiration at the Innovations@DOMOTEX Dialogues, where renowned architects, interior designers and product designers, such as Alfredo Häberli, will discuss topical issues and the latest trends and developments in the flooring industry.
Saturday, January 14: Alfredo Häberli is special guest
Day one of the Innovations@DOMOTEX Dialogues – Saturday, 14 January – will kick off with a major highlight as multiple award-winning Swiss designer Alfredo Häberli gives a keynote address on “Future Living.” The keynote address will be followed by a discussion between Häberli and Martin Haller from Vienna’s Caramel architects on “Home living – Where to next? The case for human architecture.” Häberli will explore the topic from the perspective of an expert product designer. He designs furniture, lamps and home accessories as well as fittings for shops, restaurants and hotels. He has also built a strong reputation as a designer of floor coverings. The architects at Caramel not only work on conventional building projects but also design installations for exhibitions and undertake concept studies. Their objective is to transform living spaces into experiential zones, and they have built a reputation for fearless experimentation and innovation.
Häberli’s presence at DOMOTEX will be a major attraction, especially for architects, designers and planners. In his keynote speech he will also outline some of the elements of effective design and the ideas and inspiration that render his work fresh, surprising and original. The exchange between the top designer and his audience will prove fruitful, informative and exciting.
Sunday, January 15: Young Designer Trend Table
Day two of the Innovations@DOMOTEX Dialogues – Sunday, 15 January – will be given over to the Young Designer Trendtable and its visions of the future of flooring design. The Young Designer Trendtable is a group of experimental designers from five countries who are developing a series of trend setting flooring creations specially for DOMOTEX 2017. The discussion will be held in English.
Monday, January 16: Space & Acoustics
On Monday, 16 January, leading creatives, such as the interior designer Professor Rudolf Schricker of Atelier Schricker, Stuttgart, will explore the topic of Space & Acoustics. Their discussion will be themed, “Glass windows and hard flooring: What is the secret to acoustically optimizing interior spaces?” Professor Schricker’s firm delivers holistic interior designs for public buildings, hotels, the hospitality industry and trade fair stands.
Tuesday, January 17: Consulting & Sustainability
Tuesday, 17 January, will be entirely devoted to the topic of Consulting & Sustainability. Tina Kammer, the founder of the Stuttgart-based online shop Interior Park, and Alexander Plajer and Werner Franz, the creative minds behind Berlin’s Plajer & Franz architectural and interior design office, will be debating the questions “Can consulting be a product?” and “Do we need special show rooms for the sale of services?”
New: application-specific guided tours for visitors
DOMOTEX, Guided Tours
Guided tours geared to practical aspects of the keynote themes of the Innovations@ DOMOTEX Dialogues program and featuring selected innovations will provide creative professionals with a wealth of information and ideas for the contracting sector. Headed by some big names in architecture, design and journalism, the tours will offer an insight into the most exciting innovations of the sector.
Those attending the Innovations@DOMOTEX Dialogues can delve deeper into the topics addressed there by joining special tours . Each of these tours is application-specific and departs immediately after its corresponding Dialogue. They will run from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. daily and are free of charge for DOMOTEX visitors. This part of the tour program is aimed at creatives from the architecture, interior architecture and interior design scenes who are at DOMOTEX scouting for new ideas on floor covering applications.
The organizers will also be running their popular “Guided Tour” program, in which renowned architects and designers will take tradeshow visitors to exhibits selected by the Innovations@DOMOTEX jury. The Innovations@DOMOTEX Guided Tours are held twice per day from Saturday, 14 January, to Monday, 16 January, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
