Tapping innovation: Axor’s WaterDream 2015

Updating a bathroom is one of the most daunting tasks in any home improvement project, but what if changing the style of tap on your sink or bath was as easy as swapping furniture around? This vision prompted the latest Axor WaterDream – a project that was initiated more than 20 years ago by the design brand to explore new directions for bathroom design through collaborations with leading creatives. The Axor WaterDream 2015 takes as its starting point the brand’s innovative U-Base fixture, which enables any spout to be easily attached and detached and has the potential to revolutionise the development of bathroom fittings by offering a level of customisation far beyond anything the industry has seen before.

The idea behind the Axor U-Base was introduced in April 2014 in combination with the Axor Starck V washbasin mixer, which became Axor’s first transparent mixer. The glass spout designed by Philippe Starck reveals the Axor U-Base fitting and the innovative safety-stop function that automatically stops the water flow when the spout is detached.

To showcase the versatility of the Axor U-Base, Axor teamed up with students from the Bachelor Industrial Design and Master Product Design courses at the University of Art and Design in Lausanne, also known as ECAL. The students were given the brief to design a unique spout that could be made from glass and combined with the Axor U-Base to suggest a distinctive functional or aesthetic direction. An exhibition at Axor's Milan showroom during the city's recent design week presented five selected designs that were produced by Swiss glassblower Matteo Gonet in his Basel workshop.

The project was overseen by the head of Axor, Philippe Grohe, who gave the students complete freedom to interpret the potential of the Axor U-Base in their bespoke solutions. "I like to share experiences with younger people because it often results in very fresh ideas," Philippe Grohe explains. "I was very happy with the quality of outcomes that were achieved in a short period. In less than 12 weeks we were able to kickstart a project, generate first ideas and produce four functional prototypes."

Among the proposals envisioned by the ECAL students are fixtures that incorporate additional uses relating directly to the supply of water. Thomas Elliott Burns seamlessly connected the spout to a raised surface incorporating a mirror, while Jordane Vernet integrated a stack of drinking glasses on top of the fitting. Léa Pereyre and Claire Pondard used glass to create a removable carafe with a spout that also acts as a handle.

Iris Andreadis designed an elegant organic fitting that recalls the shape of a lotus flower, and lets water spiral up through the glass neck and spill over the lip of its surface. The glass-forming process was explored in Katarzyna Kempa and Stanislaw Czarnocki's design, made by slicing a simple cylinder vertically and bending one section down to form a spou. The resulting non-functional prototype demonstrates the difficulties involved in working with water, as the form causes water to spill out of the sides.

The designs realised for the exhibition illustrate the creative scope that the Axor U-Base enables, which Axor hopes will one day give designers and architects the possibility to develop their own unique spouts.