Stand construction systems: Surprising, stylish, supercool

Systems manufacturers not only deliver profiles and wall fillings. They develop practical solutions. And often hugely creative design ideas.

Dressing up – Syma, the Swiss system maker and exhibition designer takes this quite literally. Its stand added a touch of haute couture to SuisseEmex 2014. The company’s entire presence at the marketing show was covered in a Coco Chanel-inspired dogtooth-print fabric. The colour code was pure black & white, like the famous creations of the Parisian fashion designer. The walls, the floor, the bar, fabric cubes hovering above – even a table football game at the stand were covered in the Chanel pattern. Pure, deep black was reserved for the cube over the front of the stand and half of the exquisitely stylish bar and lounge furniture. While the other half formed a contrast in radiant white. To round off the Chanel image, a well-known quotation appeared above the stand: “Fashion changes but style endures.”   

Although the theme was not fashion but dressing up, Syma demonstrates how the system structure can be rendered completely invisible under seamless fabric coverings – thanks to a sophisticated solution. And how a stand that is so easy to put up and take down can produce such a highly distinctive design. “Surprising, stylish, eye-catching, super-cool, unexpectedly different”– these are just some of the reactions we heard during the fair,” marketing director Beat Müller quotes the stand visitors. “Some said it was the most attractive stand at the fair, others that it was “the sort of stand that would be great for us.” But it made visitors not only want to stop and have a brief stare but also stay a bit longer. At a punching sack guests were able to take on the world champion of martial art K1. There was also a selfie contest. And at the bar a professional barista offered exclusive coffee specialities (www.syma.ch).

Mezzo Systems is one of the leanest and most versatile aluminium frame and wall systems on the market. With its partly very slender Mezzo profiles it offers virtually unlimited creative design possibilities. But other construction requirements – such as special noise protection or lighting needs – can also be met. At EMO 2013, the leading international trade show for the metal working industry in Hannover, Mezzo Light profiles were used for the stand of Liebherr Verzahntechnik designed by Meadim Exhibition International. For the showroom and lounge area the exhibitors and stand designers wanted indirect soft lighting. In addition, the lounge and conference rooms were to be soundproofed, to create a calm atmosphere for relaxing and networking. These wishes were met with the help of suspended ceilings out of Mezzo profiles.   

The ceiling construction was covered by translucent, sound-absorbing fabrics. This not only produced a noticeably lower noise level than in the surrounding area. The lamps illuminating the stand were also covered by the fabric. This generated a diffuse effect which bathed the stand in a soft light. “This lighting really made the multimedia presentations and very bright and colourful images of the products stand out,” Olaf Krobitzsch describes the result. “This was a simple construction with a subtle but strong impact,” recaps Mezzo’s Managing Director. Suspended ceilings of all sizes are possible with Mezzo systems. They can be short and rectangular or long or square (www.mezzo-systems.de).

G40 under glass: The 40mm wall system by Gilnhammer is mainly known in trade fair circles for its lightweight and ecological sandwich construction with a honeycomb core.   But the system also includes framework elements enabling completely glazed walls. Hawe Hydraulik, a producer of hydraulic components and systems, commissioned Gilnhammer to build eleven unit manager cabins for its new production plant in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria. These cabins are separate rooms with a size of ten square metres and height of two and a half metres. They are intended for the managers of the respective production units within the plant. Apart from a back wall made of the lightweight wood system, the cabins feature glass walls all around and have no ceiling. The corner joints are connected by dock profiles and dock connectors that were newly created for the G40 system.   

The purpose of the glass cabins is fairly straightforward: The unit managers are to be as close to the staff as possible to offer optimum support and guidance at their machines and constant accessibility. And good visual contact is a valuable bonus for this purpose. At the same time, the cabins offer a certain level of noise protection and sufficient privacy. This enables unit managers to work and make calls in peace and quiet. “Hawe did not want closed office cells for its new ultramodern production plant, so our flexible glass frame system was the obvious choice,” recalls Managing Director Thomas Gilnhammer. Its flexibility is one of the greatest advantages of the G40 system. In the new halls the hydraulics manufacturer can adapt its production swiftly and easily to changing customer needs. The equipment and machinery can simply be regrouped for this purpose. “Repositioning the cabins, making them larger or smaller, is no problem at all. For example, two unit manager cabins can be combined into one,” says Thomas Gilnhammer. “And they can easily be set up and dismantled by the in-house maintenance team” (www.gilnhammer.de).      

Gahrens+Battermann has been showcasing its intelligent event software G+B Interactive. The “digital event optimiser” was presented intensively in a countrywide roadshow and on the event specialist’s website www.gb-interactive.de. The software consists of eleven tools that are integrated and synchronised with one another. They are available on a modular basis or in six predefined sets for typical events. To introduce the workings of its new event management software G+B Interactive to the industry, Gahrens+Battermann toured Germany for the second time in June and July. With more than 200 enthusiastic and impressed guests after five stops in Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Hannover and Munich , Gahrens+Battermann decided to complement the tour with two further shows in Stuttgart and Detmold . The company’s Interactive Manager Dirk Hesse knows how important it is to get close to the customer: “The customer feedback went way beyond what we had anticipated,” he comments enthusiastically. “With G+B Interactive we are filling a gap in events technology – if not all the gaps!”. The software suite covers all operational aspects of event management – from planning and administration to participant involvement all the way through to an efficient evaluation of information and feedback (www.gb-mediensysteme.de).