Bathroom tap
An experience focused bathroom tap
Designed alongside Matt Donovan & Joshua Summerfield
Brief
The world is experiencing the greatest saturation of design in history. Demand for novel and fashionable products has resulted in some poorly considered outcomes with a lack of finesse and longevity.
We intend on designing a premium mixer tap for use in the bathroom or powder room that focuses on a robust and desirable outcome. We intend to change the way young professionals (27-37) in affluent cities experience everyday interactions with their bathroom.
The design will focus on achieving a refined, elegant appearance with an intuitive and captivating user experience. We will do this by playing to the strengths of tried and tested materials, producing a distilled result with a high degree of consideration for surface finish and touch-point details.
Process
My initial concept, Verdigris, was a somewhat over-engineered solution for users to more easily clean their faces while still being effective for washing their hands. The copper accents were included as a dynamic style element, as the product ages the copper would slowly develop a naturally green patina specifically called verdigris, hence the concepts name.
After examining Matt's, Joshua's and My concepts a completely new direction was selected this was characterised by to points that have full rotational freedom.
Development
understanding the behaviour of the water in the conditions it's used for was a particularly crucial part as it was important in validating our chosen direction, our tests proved the water could be controlled quite easily under normal house water pressure.
With the basic function of the tap worked out with the help of teardowns we explored more of the taps touchpoints such as the aerator shape, overall form specifics (angles and lengths) and the handles. Blue-foam cardboard were invaluable materials in these early mock-ups and prototypes.
Final Design
The final design is a wall-mounted tap that has a simple slot aerator, with gradual faceting beginning from the slot and fading out towards the opposing side, the faceting is mimicked on the handle. These facets, while stylish, are intended to give the user an idea of the direction the aerator is pointing in and the water temperature at a glance.
The free-spinning pivots offer users the ability to easily transition from washing their face or rinsing their mouth after brushing their teeth to handwashing with minimal fuss.
The final prototype was made by a combination of 3d printing and CNC machined aluminium, this particular style intended to represent an example of a powder-coated tap.
