For the Guest of Honour exhibition this year, we wanted to depart of the conventional aspirations of furniture fairs – often only focused on displaying product designs – and to actually link the objects and products on display to pressing social issues unique to China.

Inspired by the alleyways and street life of clan-based villages, the exhibition layout is that of a sinuous or continuous alleyway that folds and unfolds to create lanes and layers of spaces slowly revealing themselves to visitors. The profile and form takes on the reading of an abstracted pitch roof which symbolizes the home, which when repeated in connected rows form a “village”. Neri&Hu products (furniture, lighting and accessories) are curated and place within the continuous alley, to be built out of local timber from Sweden. Screens, built in millwork, windows and shutters create unexpected moments of encounter.