AXOR x Masquespacio: the bathroom as a temple

Bright colours are as much a part of Valencia-based design studio Masquespacio's repertoire as its extravagant aesthetics and narrative spatial concepts, making Colombian-born designer Anna Milena Hernández Palacios and Belgian-born Christophe Penasse the perfect allies on AXOR's ‘Make it yours!’ campaign, which explores colour as a design tool in the bathroom. AXOR asked them for their vision of personal luxury and the duo responded by designing a bathroom concept for a hotel. The result, ‘Utopian Dream’, is set in a 20-square-metre room with over-height ceilings and is a space that communicates sacred qualities. 

‘The first thing I did was close my eyes and start to travel,’ says Hernández Palacios about the studio's collaborative design approach.‘I traveled to big cities in the world, where you have skyscrapers, and these environments are stunning and really modern.’ They envisioned an emerging metropolis as the site of the Masquespacio Bathroom, with new skyscrapers popping up on the skyline, but still on the way to developing its own style.

In this discovery phase, designers and architects can shape the identity of a city because there are hardly any style-defining parameters, explain the design duo. They think of Panama City, for example, which has developed as a result of many different influences and is currently experiencing a building boom. ‘You're not limited to what you're seeing... It's much easier to innovate.’

The design duo themselves travel a lot. For them, hotel rooms, as urban and transitory places, are also spaces of imagination. In their bathroom concept for AXOR, Masquespacio therefore relies on materials that inspire a sense of surprise. These include iridescent chrome foil and brushed aluminium, which join classic materials of urban architecture such as concrete, steel and oak. For Masquespacio, however, the real impetus for the concept is colour, which the pair think about starting with the details. They chose a Polished Black Chrome finish from AXOR's portfolio, which is part of its exclusive FinishPlus surface series.

‘We had a clear idea of what colour we wanted the AXOR products to be,’ Penasse tells us, ‘and in our projects it's important that everything is balanced and we don't just pick something... So we made the color of the faucets the starting point.’ Polished Black Chrome becomes the link between the products, such as the mixers from the AXOR Starck collection with their archetypal silhouettes, the striking AXOR Drain shower channel and the linear AXOR Universal Rectangular accessories. They were combined with the flat and elegant modules from the ShowerComposition range and the organically shaped AXOR Suite washbasins and bathtub.

Masquespacio deliberately creates the hotel room as a temporary home away from home and puts it into dialogue with the city, making the guest the protagonist of the scenario. The oversized arched windows, reminiscent of a cathedral, bring the panorama into the room. Polished metal surfaces such as the gleaming chrome columns reflect the lights of the metropolis and the central positioning of the bathtub and shower makes the view an element of the interior.

Like a sculpture, the AXOR Suite bathtub – which along with the matching washbasins was also designed by Philippe Starck – stands as a clear oval in the semicircle of the window and assumes its role as the main actor in the floor plan. Sweeping arches of raw concrete and red mirror metal span above it, creating a dramatic stage setting. ‘When you integrate the arches, it gets more human. Even if it's really futuristic and a bit surreal,’ says Palacios of her aesthetic intention. 

Masquespacio's ‘Utopian Dream’ also highlights the factor of individuality in bathroom design. The bathroom, as the home or hotel's most intimate room, is also an extremely personal place that deserves a unique design as a mirror of personality. It is more than just a wet room, it is a refuge for moments of ritual, a place to relax and unwind. Even – and perhaps especially – in hotels, everyday life can be left behind. The guest can experience the bathroom as a place of power, where haptic experience, sensuality and luxury come together.

‘It's also wellbeing at the end,’ Penasse explains. ‘And quality is important for that. And I think that's where products like AXOR come in.’ In Masquespacio's ‘Bathroom as Temple’, things are ‘futuristic and a little surreal’, as Palacios mentioned. Penasse imagines the user as an open-minded, creative and courageous character, just like ‘Utopian Dream’ itself: ‘They are always positive. So this part of the project really represents this – their openness and positive spirit, their looking to the future.’

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