Long interested in bringing new typologies of living space to the forefront, we welcomed the opportunity to envisage the Ideal House for the 2007 IMM Cologne – the world’s leading trade fair for the furniture and interior design sector.
Ideal House Cologne, created in partnership with the designer Naoto Fukasawa, constituted a practical experiment on a temporal scale – the opportunity to test out ideas and concepts within a non-permanent environment.
Indicative of what a ‘wish for future living’ might constitute, our designs established a ‘built manifesto’ – suggesting an entirely new type of living environment. A house in which space is effectively re-invented, its morphology as yet un-associated with familiar typologies or conventions. Three years on, we continue to see a shift in thinking regarding the idea of ‘house’ and ‘home’ – with attention shifting to the notion of making ‘space’ work in both a function and aesthetic sense. Our notions of the Ideal House may have evolved further, but this early manifestation retains relevance.
