Go with the flow
Bathroom products designer Robin Levien dips his toe in the trends water and shares his thoughts on what lies ahead in the coming year for the space we spend a good part of our lives in...
It's hard to believe that we're already into the third month of the new year - so it's as an appropriate time as any to take a moment to reflect on the trends that are proving themselves in 2013.
Vintage is one of those pervasive trends that has infiltrated every aspect of our everyday lives - fashion, cooking and interiors - and it shows no signs of abating. We are continuing to take inspiration from past optimistic times and mid-20th-century vintage is where it's at now. This will manifest itself in shapely accessories in the bathroom. Ideal Standard's Sottini Reprise range offers the ideal vintage look, with moldings and lines of traditional architecture revisited in a modern interpretation of a classically inspired bathroom.
Updating bathrooms and drawing on the vintage theme needn't be an expensive project, and can be achieved relatively simply through collections of accessories or small bursts of colour accents. For example, a collection of brightly coloured glass vases from the Sixties will add an optimistic note to the space.
Blocks of colour brighten up any bathroom - after all, we spend seven per cent of our waking lives in there, and as bathroom time is the bookend to the day it makes sense that it should be a place to feel inspired and energised. It's very easy to fit a sheet of painted plywood for a bath panel or paint the outside of a freestanding bath, such as the Calvari Rain Bath, then play off the colour with complementary soft elements like towels and bath mats.
Besides vintage, there's a noticeable desire in modern society to get back to nature, back to the safety of Mother Earth. This is a trend ideally suited to the bathroom as ceramics already have a natural quality that provides a perfect foil for softer, natural materials such as wood. I can see wooden toilet seats making a comeback. Well, they were warm, weren't they? Ideal Standard's Concept Vanity and SoftMood ranges offer a combination of ceramic and wooden designs to achieve a natural, earthy feel.
And why not use some tongueand- groove panelling on the side of the bath or in an alcove with a lime-wash finish to calm it down and link to the white ceramic? The pristine quality of ceramic products in the bathroom can be complemented by hand-thrown porcelain accessories.
Going a little further with the natural theme, what better place to place some plants than in the bathroom? Plenty of moisture keeps plants happy - so think of the bathroom as an inner green space for the house. There are some very clever plant pots that hang upside down from the ceiling. This is a great way to tap into that previously unused space above the bath, and your client would be able to lie back in the bath picturing themselves outdoors under an Amazon rainforest canopy. If a bath has been sacrificed for the space-saving benefits of a shower-only space, then the Ideal Rain shower offers a pleasurable shower experience with a large, waterfall-effect shower head.
We have seen many designers opt for a shower-only bathroom, not just because of the space implications but through a real concern for the environment and reducing water waste. The 2012 Ideal Standard Water Saving survey showed that 81 per cent of consumers are conscious about their water use.
Saving our planet continues to be a concern, but we will have to think beyond just saving water. The bathroom is a minefield for water and energy waste, but that also means that it brings a huge potential to make substantial savings with a little thought.
For example, too frequently people waste water and energy in their bathrooms by filling the bath with hot water out of the bath and then adding cold to cool it down before getting in. This waste of water and energy can easily be prevented by filling baths through thermostatically controlled mixer taps. This allows clients to set the mixer to the desired temperature before filling the bath, much as we do when we take a shower, and then they only use as much energy and water as required.
Ideal Standard's Concept Blue fittings is a new collection that offers innovative water and energy savings. As well as thermostatic control, Concept Blue fittings showcase IdealBlue technology - a system engineered to use less water and energy: the amount of water held in the tap when closed is reduced by 80 per cent, meaning less water is wasted.
The Bathroom Manufacturers Association has introduced a new water-efficiency labelling scheme, which sees all water-efficient products now carrying a distinctive blue label. This allows you to specify in confidence knowing that you have chosen a product that is helping to keep water waste to a minimum. Ideal Standard is committed to making a difference to water wastage and has the largest range of water-saving products in the industry, with more than 400 products on the Bathroom Manufacturer Association's (BMA) water-efficient labelling scheme.
And finally, we all know that European populations are ageing: it won't be long before half the population of the UK is over 50, and the interiors industry needs to prepare to meet the needs of older consumers. My father is 97, which is remarkable, but it is many years since he has taken a bath when he comes to stay: he is worried that he will never be able to get back out! Wall-mounted grab rails would have made all the difference but there weren't any available that I thought elegant enough for my own bathroom. At Ideal Standard we recently designed some grab rails to add to the Concept accessories that I hope will look good in any bathroom.
This follows the theory that if you design for the young you exclude the old but if you design for the old you can include everyone; this is what is called 'inclusive' design - and that is another important trend for coming year.
