DIO :: Bathroom furniture

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"FUTURE BATH" :: Design research project
Project at HfG Offenbach in Collaboration with HANSGROHE, FSB, HEWI, KERAMAG and HSK.

:: INTRODUCTION

This was a project at university in collaboration with some of the biggest german sanitary brands like HansGrohe, FSB, HEWI, Keramag and HSK.

The brief was to design new solutions for the "Future bath", exploring new design concepts for the changing needs in a society that faces dramatic demographic changes during the next 50 years.

Keyword "universal design".

Most products that are designed for the elderly approach the challenge only deficite oriented, clearly classifying them as aids and assistive equipment.
These products emphasize the inability of the user to live his life as he or she used to do, enhancing the experience of failure and insuffiency.

This raises high emotional hurdles for people, which are put for what ever reason into the situation of actually needing assisitive equipment, as this equipment will always be associated and be seen as a sign for their (new aquired) inability.

:: RESEARCH
When looking closely at what we actually do in our bathrooms I noticed a paradoxon: Most of the things we do in our bathrooms we actually perform standing, although for the vast majority of them a seated posture is much more suitable, convenient and safe.

Thinking about showering in slippery bathtubs, bodycare from feet to head, pedicure and manicure, shaving and cosmetics - we actually find ourselfes in quite awkward situations while trying to handle the often complex, yet routinely executed tasks, eg. with one leg placed on the rim of the shower tub to shave the legs, or our feet placed on the sink to trim the nails.

The reason for this is not quite clear:
Maybe this is due to architecural limitations which makes an additional seat in the bathroom unwelcome, maybe it is due to our hectic everyday routine: Maintaining a standing posture in the bathroom maybe makes us believe that we are much faster, saving precious time this way.

A seated posture not only is safer and more convenient for most of the tasks we have to perform,

it acutually makes the daily bathroom routines a far more sensual act.

:: KEY INSIGHT
Sure is: Performing our bathroom routines seated would make our bathrooms more convenient and comfortable, making the daily ritual of cleaning and bodycare a much more conscious and sensual part of the day.
And it would be much safer to use.

In the long term, this has a great benefit: Bathrooms that are designed to be used seated are genuinely universally designed, avoiding unpleasing and costy refurbishments to adapt our bathrooms to our changed needs when getting older.

:: CONCEPT

Dio is a concept for a 2 piece bathroom furniture combination.

THE STOOL is a rotation moulded hollow vessel, which can be filled up with water through the valves in the front legs, providing -through the extra weight of the water of up to 40 kg- an outstandingly safe and slip proof support under the shower. The silicone coated plastic gives the material a soft touch, while it additionally increases the stability.

The geometrie of the seat surface allows a thourough and hygienic cleaning of the pubic area.

THE TRIPOD is a mobile crutch, that can be used as a hold, to hang your towels on or to take off your shoes on the slippery bathroom floor.

Apart from having high functional potential, this is more a conceptional design, adressing essential topics:

Design that perceives the normality of aging and changing physical abilities as an exception and only in context with decease and decay, creates needlessly barriers and is in hindsight to the demografic change no longer suitable and loses its validity.