Making waves: colour and creativity at this year's ISH bathroom fair
The world's most popular bathroom biennial, ISH, invited spectators to be more imaginative with the way we set up our sanitary rooms this year. With new versatile shapes, materials and colours, the evolution of the bathroom as a living space - rather than pure utility - continues.
Among our top picks were German bathroom players, Dornbracht and their modern experiment. They presented a new glass washbasin in their new CL.1 range with an adaptable bowl that allowed patterns created by 40 individual tap jets to be visualised, whilst being able to be placed upon - and against - any surface. Also introducing new materials to their range was Duravit, with their collection by Philippe Starck, Cape Cod. The fresh oceanic range included structured wooden and chrome vanity consoles to match washbasins.
On the colour front, Ceramica Flaminia brought a darker shade to the set-up, with new two-toned versions of the 'Roll' range by Nendo. The foldout standing sinks came in a chic monochrome scheme, with a black exterior and the classic white ceramic inside. Italian brand Cielo featured the same palette with chalky black and grey curved sinks, whilst Valdama added brighter hues to proceedings. The Civita Castellana-based brand and first time ISH-goer brought a colourful splash to its ceramic sinks with sunny yellows and earthy greens.
As always, the fair took pride in its technical innovations. Our favourite was the long awaited, fully-fledged SaphirKeramik collections by Konstantin Gricic and Toan Nguyen for Laufen. Using ultra-thin ceramic, the designers added clean structured bathtubs to their detailed bowl washbasins and trays. Grohe also showed a pioneering design with subterranean bathtubs, allowing the feature to neatly (and literally) become a part of your bathroom, staying hot even longer through clever insulation. Now that, we could really sink into…
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Sujata Burman is a writer and editor based in London, specialising in design and culture. She was Digital Design Editor at Wallpaper* before moving to her current role of Head of Content at London Design Festival and London Design Biennale where she is expanding the content offering of the showcases. Over the past decade, Sujata has written for global design and culture publications, and has been a speaker, moderator and judge for institutions and brands including RIBA, D&AD, Design Museum and Design Miami/. In 2019, she co-authored her first book, An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture, published by Hoxton Mini Press, which was driven by her aim to make the fields of design and architecture accessible to wider audiences.
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