laboratory of the future

The KAP Forum as a creative chameleon

by Andreas Grosz

In the KAP Forum, tomorrow’s questions are being discussed today. This platform for architecture, design and technology was established in the Rheinau dock area three years ago. A creative chameleon. KAP Forum manager Andreas Grosz explains how it has developed.

Please describe the KAP Forum in two sentences.

Andreas Grosz: The KAP Forum is a type of hybrid communication model. It is driven by the interest in and necessity for interdisciplinary exchange between architecture, design and technology-driven companies, all of which are brand and quality leaders with a high level of international commitment.

In the forum, nine companies operate under a single roof without any competitiveness or fear of industrial espionage. A model that is so far unique in Europe. What is the main element?

Planners and project developers are constantly searching for new solutions in architecture. The KAP Forum is an overarching quality network that finds individually tailored answers to such questions – be it for a hotel or an office environment or for a private space. That’s what is new. In the past, companies would often be involved shoulder to shoulder in global construction projects but would not be working together in practice. Nowadays they are looking for and developing individual solutions together. The KAP Forum is a laboratory for new methods of planning and building. Almost all sectors of interior design are central themes here at the highest level: lighting (Zumtobel) and shade (Silent Gliss), flooring (Carpet Concept) and textiles (Kvadrat), water, bathroom and kitchen (Alape, Dornbracht), household electronics (Gira) and construction research (BASF) as well as conference and office environments (Wilkhahn).

Meanwhile the KAP Forum has become well known outside the boundaries of Cologne.

That’s what is fascinating about it: it provides a space for the most diverse forums and forms of communication. In this regard the KAP Forum is a hybrid and a chameleon at the same time; it’s continuously transforming itself for new formats. Around 500 events are held here each year: from internal sales meetings, combined strategy meetings and product presentations to future-oriented series on architecture, town planning and design issues.

Is it only for specialists?

No. Part of the program is also oriented towards members of the public who are interested in architecture and design. I’m thinking about the discussion events with architects such as Daniel Libeskind, Meinhard von Gerkan, Gunter Henn, Arno Lederer, Jan Störmer, Eckhard Gerber and Georg Gewers, or the biggest exhibition on the subject of the “Convertible City”. That was the German contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale, along with Berlin-based architect duo Grüntuch/Ernst, and was attended by more than 4,000 visitors. Those were magnets for visitors – just like the exhibition on Delugan Meissl from Vienna (currently building the Porsche Museum), which proved very popular at the KAP Forum.

The city of Cologne would be pleased with that as well, no doubt?

Absolutely! That’s why I am particularly delighted to have set up a forum on the future of the European city, together with the City of Cologne and the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. In the meantime, nine cities – including Barcelona, Rotterdam, Lille, Vienna, Liverpool and London – have presented their plans and ideas for the future. Such projects are only feasible through the partnership of the KAP Forum.

Other perspectives?

Apart from the major public issues, there is also a range of issues relating to the future and to interested parties that connects the partners. “Living at work” is an example. We handled that during Orgatec, the world’s largest trade fair for office furniture. Partners’ materials and products were reflected in living environments in between work and home. A new issue is how hotels will develop in the future. That’s also a problem that we have put to all the partners. The KAP Magazin that is now available reflects the status of current discussions. In this way the KAP Forum is developing answers to new questions of the future for architects, builders and investors, again and again.

How do you envisage the hotel room of the future?

In a nomadically oriented society, the hotel room will increasingly become a temporary home – it has to be more than just accommodation.

Could you be a little more precise?

It must be a place to meet and a place for well-being. A place where I can relax and recharge, a home for the time being.

In a figurative sense, would the KAP Forum also be a kind of hotel?

Yes. The KAP Forum should also give rise to well-being and new thoughts. I find the idea of staying there for a period of time, that is to say working and living there in a project-oriented way, fascinating.

What are your plans for 2008?

After three years of the KAP Forum, KAP Magazin represents a new quality in communication, both internal and external. We see in it the opportunity to take a stance on thematic issues and in this way to publicise and promote the idea of the KAP Forum.

What does that mean for the next issue?

The second issue of KAP Magazin will be published to coincide with Orgatec 2008 and will deal with new forms of office environment. “Living at work” is a motto that is going to engage us intensively. It is exciting to see how work is developing in the areas of tension between globalisation, new technologies and local anchoring. The question is: what will localisation mean in the future? What might a workplace look like in the future?

Hotels are interfaces of innovation and development too. Hotel rooms as the workplaces of tomorrow?

If work distances itself increasingly from spatial fixity, and if work takes on a transitory character, the hotel will not just become a temporary home, but also a temporary workplace and an interface for communication. And so it must offer me more than just a bed and a TV programme. These are questions that we here in the KAP Forum are discussing with architects and property developers, and for which our partners are working hard to identify solutions. The development of future solutions is not something imaginary; rather, it’s a practical engagement with the social and cultural issues and questions of our time!