Redefining Fixtures with Geesa

Ask the interiors cognoscenti what’s trending in bathroom design currently and you’ll hear a lot about tiles. Colourfully grouted ones, green ones, triangular ones, 3D ones, irregularly arranged ones, but definitely not white subway brick ones anymore. You might hear that they are being combined with bold wallpapers and murals, and teamed with taps that are matt black, alongside vintage furniture or spa-like incidentals such as a roughly hewn wooden stool and plants. You might already know, meanwhile, that the fashionable bathtub stands alone and wet rooms are de rigueur. What you most likely won’t hear, however, is details of the latest in toilet roll holders.

Towel rails and pegs, amenity and toilet roll holders are typically the afterthought in bathroom design. When all the budget has been blown on fancy walls, faucets and furniture, the final consideration is the fixtures. Geesa, however, the Dutch brand who have specialised in these dots and crosses of bathroom design since 1885, are on a mission to change attitudes towards what they consider an essential pillar of bathroom architecture.

‘Bathroom accessories are the jewels of the room, the accents if you will,’ says Diyana Jamil, Design Associate at DESIGNyoung, Dubai, who has worked closely with the brand. ‘They can be in line with the rest of the bathroom design but may also contradict the style in order to make a fashion statement. They can create a certain tension or excitement or else a sense of comfort and tranquility.’ Geesa has accessorised bathrooms in hotels, cruise ships and private houses around the world with practical designs. Now paying increased attention to synchronising its materials, finishes and silhouettes with the wider fashions of bathroom design, it feels ready to make a case for the fixtures being the equal of all other aspects of a scheme.

Its latest update addresses the staple 27 Collection, whose chrome classism has been overhauled. Sticking with the (now fashionably) circular accents, profiles are slimmed down and lightened, finishes are expanded to include brushed stainless steel, black, brushed gold and brushed metal black finish alongside chrome, and it now goes by the name of Opal. It feels very modern, adaptable and accessibly priced, but its newly trim silhouette doesn’t deny the product the quality and solidity that we typically expect from Dutch design.

Other recent news for Geesa is the launch of Shift; modular accessories designed in collaboration with VanBerlo agency and described as ‘design for designers’. In timely fashion, it offers basic shapes that can then be customised with sculptural patterns (and also delivered in all the same finishes as Opal). Bespoke design and texture: that’s two ticks when it comes to modern expectations. And Leev, a new line of shelves, that incorporate amenity holders – from soap dishes to shampoo dispensers – or can simply serve to hold your own choice of wet room comforts, is designed with the very contemporary idea of interior integration in mind; it’s a design that can make the leap out of the bathroom, and tie rooms together with matching accents.

The point is, nipping down to the hardware store at the snagging end of an installation to find the fixtures – even metaphorically – should never be our habit. The accessories need consideration at the front end of the planning job, and Geesa offers to hold your hand while doing so. They are set up to partner architects and interior professionals on whatever level is required. ‘We listen to the interior designer but we also listen to the end-users,’ explains Business Development Manager, Rob Ranshuysen. ‘In the hospitality industry, we listen to the creator of the brand within the main brand. What kind of guest are they aiming for? What is the average stay? What is their budget? A good brief allows us to translate into one road map, style, function colour and shape.’

Whether your washroom aesthetic is art deco revisited with a 21st-century flourish, industrial restraint, or is a spathroom with natural undercurrents, the fixtures are the punctuation that brings clarity and flow to the architecture of the bathroom’s story. And as all young scholars know, commas and capital letters are best planned in as you go.

© Architonic