Visitors to Feria Hábitat Valencia 2010 set to walk round cityscape
Feria Hábitat Valencia is putting the finishing touches to the plans for the upcoming fair, which runs from 28th September to 2nd October. One of the main new features of the 2010 edition of the leading fair for ‘Made in Spain’ interiors is the new layout of the exhibition pavilions – an innovative staging of the exhibitors’ product offering in an urban landscape designed by the architecture and design team led by Héctor Ruiz.
The design project will reflect big city life, flair and energy – the source of the main trends in interiors – in each of the fair’s pavilions. The exhibition will thus be taking its inspiration from the metropolis and the rhythm of city life as a framework for presenting its content, which consists of furniture, lighting, décor, home textiles, outdoor furniture and accessories, upholstery, bedroom, office furnishings and technological solutions for the homes of the future. Each of these sectors will be grouped together in ‘districts’ that will reveal the trends for 21st century interiors
Each pavilion will have plazas brimming with colour, huge posters advertising the events taking place, custom-designed signage to guide visitors round each of the spaces, special lighting that will draw the eye to the stands and street furniture that will make everybody’s stay or visit more pleasant. Everything has been thought out to achieve optimum interaction between exhibitors and visitors and to balance a smooth, different and special visitor experience with the commercial and business spirit of the fair.
For architect and interior designer Héctor Ruiz, “the aim is to turn Feria Hábitat Valencia into a cityscape, brimming with life, exuberant and full of the positive energy you find in big cities.” As the project designer explains, one of the keys is to make things as easy as possible for everyone who is involved in an event such as Feria Hábitat Valencia and improve the way that business is generated. “There will be a system to the way people move around the venue. There will be a main artery with the routes around each pavilion leading off it and along which the various ‘districts’ will be sited, with their secondary ‘roads’. Also, each pavilion will have a plaza of its own that will act as a big heart for that pavilion, providing energy for each of these districts.”
What this will achieve, in Ruiz’s opinion, is “to create a perception of the fair as a city. This next Feria Hábitat Valencia will be an important event for trade, art, fashion, communications, finance, leisure, entertainment and everything that is novel. In short, a place of constant change, where things happen.” This will be the second major collaboration between this designer and Feria Hábitat Valencia. For the 2009 fair he designed a spectacular installation to accommodate the ‘outdoor’ section, one of the three main sections around which the ‘Lifestyle Spaces’ exhibits were structured.
New features for Feria Hábitat Valencia 2010
Feria Hábitat Valencia is already the main business and international trading platform for the Spanish interiors industry. The event will be showcasing an extensive product offer from a number of sectors including furniture, lighting, decor, home textiles, outdoor furniture and accessories, bedrooms, the contract sector and technological solutions for the home of the future, along with the new talent and designers show, nude. Also, companies for which design is central to their u.s.p., whether in the classic or the leading edge arena, will have a space of their own in La Galería (The Gallery), the special exhibition area dedicated exclusively to new products from Spanish and foreign manufacturers.
The most salient new features this year, along with the new configuration and design of the exhibition space that is the fruit of the project developed by Héctor Ruiz, include an exclusive exhibition of work by top designer Patricia Urquiola, an international congress for Ibero-american designers and interior architects and the launch of the R, D + I Kitchen Workshops.
Guinot: “In 2010 we will be the biggest showcase for interiors”
This proposition relates directly to Feria Hábitat Valencia’s ‘raison d’être’ - an event that sets trends and that, in 2010, will be imbued with a commercial, urban feel. As the president of Feria Hábitat Valencia, Maria José Guinot, has said, “we want the fair to be a special place that excites and motivates the industry. We have an obsession to generate business and for the recovery of the interiors business to take off and, along with it, that of the sector’s large companies and SMEs. We believe strongly that this will happen and that is why we have decided to link the fair with what is at the heart of our business: shops, sales networks and urban spaces. This fair will be the interiors showcase par excellence more than it ever has been before.”