6 Kitchen Trends of the Future on Display in Cologne
Each year, LivingKitchen, one of Europe’s largest kitchen furnishing product events, dazzles chefs and home cooks alike with the latest in kitchen ideas, trends, and solutions. Whether it’s for the confident cook, the entertaining cook, the busy cook, or the take-out cook, there’s one thing we have learned: kitchens are not one-size-fits-all. Now the market is responding, with kitchens becoming more and more personalized. From a kitchen you can roll outside, to one with an unexpected ruddy copper glow, here are six kitchens – and six trends – that stood out on our trip to Cologne, Germany.
An outdoor boom is underway in the furnishings market, and the kitchen has not been left behind. Roll up your sleeves and roll your kitchen straight out the door with the aluminum Outdoor kitchen from Kettal; it’s perfect for the entertaining chef. The water tap, drain, and water heater are all in place, while the electrical connections are tucked away. Extra space remains for a fridge or wine cabinet. The hob is made of ceramic, and clients have an option to choose teak for the doors.
If you ever took pleasure in the warm reflection of a sturdy copper pot, you can now bask in the soothing glow of a copper kitchen! The Vita Bella kitchen by Aran Cucine is available in a liquid copper metal lacquer, which is an ideal reflecting surface for kitchen activity.
You’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into your kitchen to make it perfect. But now you’re moving, and the sheer thought of leaving your precious kitchen behind makes you upset.
Manufacturers have finally taken note of this common conundrum. The +Venovo from Poggenpohl is a floating kitchen that makes disassembly and reassembly increasingly possible without that much agony. Supported by two streamlined frames, +Venovo slips in a cooktop, exhaust ventilation, oven, refrigerator, sink, and countertop seamlessly into your kitchen setup.
The trend for matte surfaces continues. In brushed steel and lacquered laminate, the Inox 216 from Nobilia has matching upright panels and plinths for surround designs.
Professional kitchen hardware continues to jump into the residential setting. For the experienced (or brave) chef, the Colonna Stellata ultra-combi-oven from Ilve packs a powerful appliance punch into one elegant column, with convection, microwave, steam-blast chiller, and a vacuum machine.
A transparent, horizontal refrigerator made its debut in Alfredo Häberli’s lime green Future Kitchen installation at IMM. Everything in the fridge is visible without the hassle of opening the door! The refrigerator was developed by Häberli in collaboration with Samsung.
The NKBA Global Connect Liaisons are a select group of international professionals chosen by the NKBA because of their expert knowledge of design trends and sources in their part of the world. Mairi Beautyman is a creative, clued-in, tech-savvy storyteller and content strategist based out of Berlin, Germany. She writes about design, architecture, sustainability, travel, and lifestyle topics.
