FOCUS | Kitchen and bathroom design post-Covid


Grohe tips shower toilets – such as its Sensia Arena model – as popular sellers post-Covid


station. We have put together several sets that include a sink, tap and integrated soap dispenser. These have proved to be extremely popular.” This is a trend also noted by Sarah southern


Goebel, area retail sales


manager with Nolte Küchen, who points out another key area in kitchen or bathroom hygiene – namely, sensor taps. Juan Pillay, marketing manager at bathroom specialist Crosswater, also mentions this trend: “We are starting to see more of a growth towards touchless designs – making it more hygienic and easy to clean.” Grohe’s marketing manager Raj


Mistry agrees, pointing out that it has seen “extraordinary growth” in touchless, sensor products since the start of 2020. He adds: “Another area of the home that could become “touchless” is the toilet. Shower toilets have been on the market for years, but their full potential for optimum hygiene and well-being is only beginning to be realised by consumers in the wake of the pandemic.”


He continues: “As well as ‘touchless’ technology, voice activation and app-control will also be popular contenders for operating taps, appliances and other everyday items in the home.”


Bathroom specialist Geberit’s consumer marketing manager Holly Aspinall confirms the importance of ‘touchless’ products: “Even before the advent of Covid-19, we were seeing the growth of infra-red and touchless products, and we can expect to see this trend continue with products like sensor-activated flush plates, such as our Sigma80 option, automatic taps and toilet lids and sophisticated hand-drying technology becoming the norm.” Roper Rhodes says the pandemic has driven its designers on a programme of innovation that has led


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More people are requesting a second sink. This is the Studio model from Abode


We are starting to see more of a growth towards touchless designs. There is no


need to press a button or touch it – making it more hygienic and easy to clean


Juan Pillay, marketing manager, Crosswater


to sensor-activated lights on mirrors, touch-free flushing, rimless WCs that leave nowhere for germs to lurk, and quick-release WC seats.


Abode meanwhile offers a range of pull-out taps to make rinsing the kitchen sink easier, while Blanco combines sensor-activation and a pull- out hose in its Solenta-S model. Geberit and Grohe also advise that wall-hung sanitaryware aids cleaning regimes and eliminates tricky-to-reach areas around the pan.


Materials


Materials technology will also play an important part in the ongoing fight


against such threats as Covid-19. Michael Spadinger, chief executive at Alno, says: “We will see antibacterial surfaces, and the use of open shelving and units, which are accessible and easy to keep clean.”


This concern with cleaner surfaces extends to the bathroom. Vitra design director Erdem Akan explains: “The consumer’s increased understanding of hygiene will lead to different material choices, like a preference for copper alloys with high anti-microbial surface qualities.” He adds that all Vitra ceramic ware comes with Hygiene Glaze. Pillay at Crosswater tells kbbreview that the company already offers many


TOP Geberit iCon wall-hung WC with sensor-activated flush plate


ABOVE Roper Rhodes motion- activated flush sensor helps keep surface contact to a minimum


products with antibacterial properties and expects to see increasing interest from consumers in these, while Perrin and Rowe’s marketing director Nigel Palmer points out that Shaws fireclay sinks are inherently antibacterial and Geberit says its KeraTect glaze is non-porous and maintains “high levels of hygiene and prevents bacteria from gathering”.


The lockdown certainly created a sea change in how kitchen/dining areas are being used, functioning as a food prep and cooking area, family social hub, children’s homework area and even a home office.


This has prompted many to suggest that kitchen designs will need to be adaptable and flexible going forward, with open-plan giving way to multi-plan or ‘broken-plan’ as some call it, with separate zones for different uses. As Julia Steadman, head of operations at retailer Brandt Design, puts it: “Current open-plan or broken- plan schemes are generally focused on cooking, entertaining and leisure, so it will be interesting to see what manufacturers offer us in terms of new, versatile furniture that is designed for working from home.” Keller national sales manager Tim Spann believes the trend is here to stay: “The key to kitchen design moving forward will be flexibility and adaptability. I think we will see a rise in multi-use options. House remodelling, more multi-plan, as opposed to open- plan, will be the way forward for many. We’ve seen how this allows consumers to organise working from home


„ · September 2020


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