The Interior Innovation Awards are an initiative of the German Design Council and recognise the best in global design from the past year. Looking down on ‘Innovation Boulevard’ as the exhibition of the winners is called, it is easy to spot some trends.

I have to say one of my favourite pieces and winner of an award is the new Hopper outdoor table and integrated seats from Extremis.

The Extremis philosophy is one of bringing people together and this large, solid table does exactly that. It is named after Director Dirk Wynants’ newfound appreciation of hops farming (he’s just bought a hops farm himself and begun brewing beer!).

The modular seating for breakout areas, PARCS by Bene – launched in Australia at last year’s Saturday in Design – took out an award.

However, there is a huge range of winners, everything from kitchen appliances such as the new Miele induction cooktop, to new versions of existing products, such as Züco’s Small Perillo chair.

The largest and most amazing of the designs to pick up an award is the Alnomarecucina from Alno, a huge kitchen island bench most definitely inspired by nautical pursuits.

Junya Ishigami’s ‘family chairs’, with their asymmetrical shapes and quirky personalities, took out an award too.

Also worth a mention is the stack of paper called the ‘Munken Cube’. Described as “a communicative object consisting of paper and wood”, this clever little design by e15 is like a giant post-it note pad. It can be used as a table or just as a writing/drawing pad.

You can view the Best of the Best awards here featuring those products judged by the expert panel as being a cut above in innovation.

Click here for more of Ben’s reports from imm cologne; or, follow all the action from Maison et Object 2011 here.