tHuisfront alternative interior design fair with surprising concepts
From 28 September until 3 October 2004 the tHuisfront will for the third time take place in Amsterdam’s Oostelijk Havengebied (Eastern Harbour Area) – an inspiring off-site interior design fair organised in and around Loods 6 as an alternative to the Woonbeurs in the RAI exhibition centre. This year the tHuisfront route will include more venues in the Oostelijk Havengebied. There will be special exhibitions, for example, in De Cantine (next to the new Lloyd Hotel) and in Pakhuis Wilhelmina: the spectacular tHuisfront-Wilhelmina experience. The collective building Loods 6 will again be the centre of the tHuisfront event, this year featuring no fewer than eight inspiring presentations/concepts, such as Het Zeeuws-Meisje wonen: low-cost starters’ houses designed by property developers and architects on the basis of pallet construction. The small houses are furnished by well-known stylists in cooperation with chain stores best known for their favourably priced products such as Leen Bakker and HEMA. There will also be a Potpourri-Wooncafé with an impressive collection of chairs, tables, lamps and dinner services collected by the stylist Eddy Frings. All the products will be priced and can be purchased. Voyeurs among the tHuisfront visitors will enjoy catching a glimpse of the kitchens of families elsewhere in the world in the shops along KNSM-laan.
One of the most refreshing eye-catchers of tHuisfront will be an ice parlour built and styled by Marjolein Vonk in collaboration with the Swedish Ice Hotel. The parlour will be built from blocks of ice from Lapland in a specially refrigerated tent and will be alternately furnished as a bedroom and a dining room. Other forms of ‘natural living’ will meanwhile be presented in the park in front of Loods 6, such as living in a ‘glass tree house’, outdoor showers, mobile saunas, etc. A variation on the theme ‘working from home’ will be presented at tHuis CEO. This presentation will include everything from an inflatable instant office to a squatters’ tent and from a cardboard home office to the world’s smallest conference room. Another theme will be ‘Musts for Millionaires’, where the weirdest kitchen utensils, from a radish peeler to a tomato deseeder, will be presented and demonstrated.
And at Design on Demand, finally, students of design academies will turn any object brought along by visitors – from a cheese slicer, an old chair or a broken stool to a hopelessly old-fashioned wall clock – into a newly designed product. For 5 euros the students will in the Design Laboratory turn something second-hand into something new.