EuroCucina - Milan 2018

In April we sent a team of four to Milan for the 22^nd edition of EuroCucina. EuroCucina is widely known as one of the largest and most innovative kitchen trade fairs in the world. This year there were 117 exhibitors and more than 300,000 attendees. Visitors were greeted with a vast array of top quality goods. All the exhibits at EuroCucina embodied contemporary design, technological innovation, next generation performance, energy efficiency and ease of use. New shapes, colours and materials helped to mark out the kitchen as a place for conviviality and interaction with the outside world.

We asked our design consultants Mark and Dom to give us a write up of their experience at EuroCucina 2018!

Eurocucina 2018 was absolutely phenominal. The sheer size of the show (22,000m2) and the number of companies and exibitors involved was staggering.

We were completely mind blown by the diversity of the kitchens and products that we saw. The sheer range of things that are available, and therefore the different markets that are around to fill those demands is incredible.

Some of the design aspects that stood out to us were:

-        Open/Exposed shelving for items which in NZ we would usually hide away. A lot of this shelving was metal or had exposed metal components 

-        We've very much moved away from the white kitchen! There is still a good amount of light but often textured or with slight shading or patterning. The move is towards dark/moody/masculine colours with lots of different materials - woods, metals, stones and textures

-       An amazing amount of laminate tops! This really surprised us and stone is definitely still present but there were a lot more laminates than we expected to see. Laminates were used as a way to add texture and colour to kitchens and were simply stunning

-        Interesting handles – very much a way to add different materials to the kitchen, we saw a lot of feature handles

-        LED lighting INSIDE drawers! This looked amazing and is something that we’d love to see more of. In fact, there was a real emphasis on feature lighting in general throughout the show

-        Greenery in the kitchen! Greenery is a really simple way of bringing life to the kitchen and really bringing the outside in. A lot of greenery is used decoratively but there is a real move towards the introduction of climate-controlled systems and hydroponics so that edible gardens are available wherever you choose to live! 

-        Automation is still growing in the kitchen. Everything from wireless charging surfaces to live virtual cooking experiences

-        There was some really inventive thinking around the design and layout of the kitchen. Cooking peninsulas, different ways of doing blind corners and hanging shelves were all new and great to see

 We approached EuroCucina 2018 really focused on what would work with Kitchen Mania and our processes and if there was anything we could see that we could use to push those systems and processes. So a lot of our highlights above are the ideas that we would LOVE to bring back to New Zealand! We were so pleased that the ideas we saw are not impossible for us to achieve in New Zealand and at Kitchen Mania. We already have the capabilities here - we hope that we can inspire our customers to incorporate some of these cutting edge design ideas into their own kitchens! - Mark and Dom - EuroCucina 2018

Thanks Guys for an amazing write up on all you have seen, learnt and been inspired by at EuroCucina2018!! Next stop... AWISA! Coming soon....