25 years ago, who would have thought the bathroom would experience such a rapid rise within the hierarchy of rooms in the home – from a purely functional space to a lifestyle showpiece, from the architect’s neglected stepchild to a stage where bathroom planners can parade their prowess?
The bathroom has become the pride and joy of hotel rooms, private houses, and even perfectly ordinary residences. Here Surfaces Reporter is glad to showcase some innovative bathroom designs of 2018.
1. Fashion Bathroom
The bathroom is becoming more fashionable and colourful. White-on-white monotony with walls tiled all the way up to the ceiling was yesterday: the bathroom is becoming a stylish feel-good space that people enjoy spending time in.
The Fashion Bathroom is a catwalk for individual style. At the Pop up my Bathroom trend platform, the trend towards more fashion in the bathroom is staged in up-to-the-minute shades of rosé.
2. The Sophisticated Bathroom
Simple, tasteful and above all original: the modern urban bathroom has style and takes a self-assured approach to its historical heritage. It doesn’t matter whether the furniture is meant for the living room or the bathroom: as long as the look is right, anything goes.
Don’t overdo it and keep your feet on the ground: besides demonstrating style consciousness and a self-assured approach to historical heritage, this trendy type of bathroom is also deliberately understated.
According to the ‘Pop up my Bathroom’ trend platform, the Sophisticated Bathroom is very much on trend as a modern alternative to the country style – especially in cool, stylish bathrooms in urban apartments, which tend to be on the small side.
Products in theme: Burgbad, Axor
3. Healthy Bathroom
Tomorrow’s bathroom: gym and wellness centre in one
When it comes to taking care of body and soul, the bathroom is taking on new meaning: as a private gym with hydrotherapy treatments in an individual feel-good atmosphere. Modern technology is used to integrate traditional techniques and create a personalised oasis.
Put yourself through your paces and relax the right way in the Healthy Bathroom. Tomorrow’s bathroom won’t just be cosier; in modern interiors, it will also take on the function of a health promotion centre where water plays an important role in prevention – a space for stretching exercises and running on the treadmill, for revitalising and relaxing, for checking health and giving it a boost with water.
Products in theme: Alape, Dornbracht
4. Comfortable Bathroom
365 days a year: a lifetime of wellbeing in a Comfortable Bathroom with individual solutions
Expectations of the bathroom have increased – and will continue to do so. At the same time, consumers no longer primarily define comfort in terms of traditional signs of luxury like marble or exclusive designer fittings, but in terms of personalised bathroom equipment and design. Because the Comfortable Bathroom is no longer built for generations, but for the moment. 365 days a year.
Opposites do attract. In the Comfortable Bathroom, the focus is on individual needs. Thanks to made-to-measure furniture systems and vanities, safety-minded planning and high-tech, tomorrow’s bathroom provides individual, ergonomic solutions for everybody – whether it’s for one person, a couple or a family.
Products in theme: Keuco
5. Nature Bathroom
A bathroom dream in green
The Nature Bathroom embodies the vision of a bathroom that expresses its commitment to sustainable action and nature through the choice of materials, design and water technology.
With today’s know-how and the latest products from the sanitary industry, planning the bathroom with a focus on ecological aspects is no problem. The way to a sustainable bathroom isn’t only paved with highly complex technical products and state-of-the-art technologies; products made of natural materials that can be used for many years also play a vital role.
Products in theme: Keramag, Axor, Geberit, Hansgrohe
6. Condensed Bathroom
Good things in small packages
The Condensed Bathroom provides the essence of modern bathroom culture in a compact space: when it comes to the ideal bathroom for urban areas and a target audience that wants to live where the action is without missing out on anything, this could well be the face of the future.
The Condensed Bathroom for modern families or lifestyle-conscious singles: nowadays, anybody with a sense of style wants sophisticated furnishings, even when space is in short supply. Especially in urban areas, Pop up my Bathroom has identified a trend towards compact bathroom products that condense a high standard of design into as small a space as possible.
Products in theme: Duravit, Hansgrohe
7. Innovative Bathroom
Ready for a smart revolution
What does the bathroom of the future look like? Which new technologies and social developments will have a lasting influence on the bathroom? In addition to the surge of innovations being driven by digitalisation, the bathroom will have to provide new usage options as well.
We see bathroom’s new-found openness towards customisation – whether it’s implemented by the industry or the skilled trades. Besides the surge of innovations being driven by digitalisation and new impetus from 3D printing technology, the Innovative Bathroom will have to provide new usage options as well – regardless of its size.
Products in theme: Villeroy & Boch, Axor, Hansgrohe, Glassdouche
8. Digital Bathroom
Technology under its skin
Classic bathroom products and high-tech functions are merging into the Digital Bathroom. Even today, a wave of the hand is all it takes to start the water running or bathe the room in the desired light. The innovations the industry is showcasing indicate what direction the bathroom is evolving in.
Intelligence is skin deep. ‘Pop up my Bathroom’ shows how the Digital Bathroom is merging classic bathroom products and interactive surfaces into one homogenous entity. Besides making the bathroom more convenient, sensor-controlled fittings and programmes that are regulated at the push of a button improve safety as well.
Products in theme: Kermi, Grohe, Kaldewei