Ben van Berkel generated designs for IMM Cologne furniture fair

The architectural contribution at this year’s furniture fair IMM Cologne was delivered by UNStudio architect Ben van Berkel, who generated an urban masterplan for all three storeys of hall 11, as well as „The World’s Longest Table for all Cultures“ in the Art of Kitchen section of the fair.

Urban Masterplan for hall 11
The idea behind van Berkel’s masterplan, is that the hall, in which the imm pure ex­hibition tak­es place, should have the appearance of a cityscape, with its own grid of roads. Different ‘streets’ of variable widths are colour-coded, and result in a clustering of identifiable themes and grouping­ of stands. The different floors are connected by f­ive internal staircases, and the different display stands are located within an orthogonal grid of streets, like building blocks in a city. The wall and floor coverings that provide the colour-coding have been specially designed for the fair by UNStudio. The aim was to create a cohesive whole for the layout of the fair, providing different kinds of impressions, similar to moving between different neighbourhoods in the city. But above all, the goal was to provide orientation: “Without structure, the whole experience of a fair can become overwhelming. Guidance of some sort is desirable,” explains Ben van Berkel. As the longest street is 120 metres, and the total lengths of all streets is 4.3 km, there is a lot of space to get lost. Art of Kitchen display
Inside of hall 11, there is the Art of Kitchen display stand, in which five top producers of high quality kitchens and kitchen fixtures expose their latest innovations. UNStudio designed the stand for the five exhibitors as a common framework, as well. Additionally, UN Studio designed the central installation within the Art of Kitchen, that focuses on the nature of the contemporary kitchen. This room is no longer just a place to prepare and store food, but during the last decades it became a space for different types of social gatherings, family get-togethers, friends socializing, work-related activities, all in all a truly place where cultures meets. These aspects are translated and incorporated integrally into the world’s longest kitchen table, that has a leng­th of 55 metres and a width of 2.6 metres. The table is designed on a modular basis, offering the possibility to use the table in different configurations, and making it shorter or longer. The modular system serves as a generic framework for adding new elements, altogether generating “the Wold’s Longest Ta­ble for all Cultures”. Further IMMpressions on Ben van Berkel's designs: