In June, our team had the great opportunity to participate at the 4th NEW HOUSING Tiny House Festival in Karlsruhe, Germany. Not only was our team present at the exhibition, but we brought an actual KODA Loft Micro with us, so that visitors could experience the essence of what we do, and feel the design of KODA.
The New Housing festival has established itself as Europe’s most important meeting place for the community of designers, builders, producers and uses of tiny houses and other forms of small living. During four days, more than 8,000 fans visited the festival. On site, people had the opportunity to view more than 30 different tiny houses, modular houses and other buildings and talk to over 70 exhibitors who had arrived from across Europe: from Germany, Turkey, Estonia, Romania, Poland, Austria, Netherlands, France, etc.
We were welcomed by a very professional team who assisted us with the arrival and helped us set up the KODA Loft Micro. We were located at the ‘tiny giants’ area among other tiny houses and had crowds of micro living fans visiting us throughout the whole event.
Our Client Relations Manager Ülle Penjam who was on site throughout the whole preparation and event, reflected: “Our KODA was constantly filled with guests, so we got a chance to talk to so many of you looking for a tiny house! It was wonderful showing people different KODA features and seeing the surprise reaction of many: “but this is like a real house!” Perhaps it is something people don’t expect when hunting for a tiny living space. People expect that they have to compromise when opting for a smaller scale – but KODA is proof that they don’t need to!”
We were also lucky to have our international sales team present at the festival, introducing KODAs to a great number of people. In addition to Ülle, our team consisted of KODA Schwarzwald (team of Ralf Steimetz, Silke Steinmetz and Luis Steinmetz), Rolf Ziemdorf from Germany and our newest addition to the sales team – our Swiss agent Marco Conti.
According to the visitor survey people travelled to the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Center from 22 countries. It proves this event has continued to establish itself as Europe’s largest and most important festival for small housing. Around 2,000 visitors covered a distance of more than 300 kilometres, which gives an idea of the attraction of the event.
There was also an Expert Forum held at the festival, where visitors had the chance to listen to experts about the challenges facing the development and construction of small living arrangements and solutions offered by the industry. Among others, our structural engineer Ralf Steinmetz gave a presentation on energy-efficient and sustainable constructions and urban planning using the example of tiny house KODA (Energieeffiziente und nachhaltige Konstruktionen und Stadtplanung am Beispiel von KODA Kleinwohnformen). You can see his presentation slides in German here >>>
Here’s where we turn to you, KODA fans, as your shared knowledge of the tiny house community is irreplaceable: should you know of other events where you believe KODA should be present, please do let us know. Nothing replaces the face-to-face connection, real life experiences and feedback received from you.
In 2024, the community of tiny living in Germany and Europe will meet again at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre. The festival will take place from 28th to 30th June, 2024.
If you didn’t make it to Karlsruhe check our KODA World Map to see where you can visit a KODA for the ‘lifesize experience’, or if you would like to receive a personalised KODA offer, please reach out to our team via sales@kodasema.com.