(Pre-)View at Bathrooms in the Year 2020, part 1:
Maximum Comfort for “Best-Agers“
What is it that determines architecture and bathroom design in the year 2020? GROHE dealt with this question in a scientific way and developed a range of scenarios. With orientation at different target groups, corresponding concepts were developed. A special focus lay on the so-called „Business Nomads“, the „Luxury Ascetics“ and the „Best Agers“.
For these financially sound older people, the following trend is clearly on the cards: The bathroom is no longer a place for cleaning and relaxation only. The sanitary room has changed from the “powder room“ into a “temple of body culture“. Older people especially have developed different, new needs. They wish for comfort and safety and, all the same, aesthetics and maximum ergonomics. To them, it is vital to stay within their own four walls and in “the midst of life“ of the social environment they are accustomed to, as long as possible.
All the rooms frequently used are situated on the same level. Within the rooms, thresholds as far as possible are taboo – in the bathroom as well. Water, here, is not a means to an end, but staged in its handling as a fountain of youth and a source of joie de vivre. Technology is implemented as discreetly as possible. High quality demands are connected with clear-cut expectations concerning comfort, user-friendliness and ergonomics. Affluent older people especially appreciate continuity and safety and require corresponding equipment. Therefore, barrier-free solutions are to be preferred, setting no obstacles to enjoyment.
The occupants of the futurist house do not want, and do not have to, undertake unnecessary climbing tours over high basin rims of a shower tub. Following a voice order to the house technology computer, the circular basin wall, elegantly framing the fittings-column, lowers into the floor. Thus, the entrance is absolutely on floor level, without a threshold. After the entering of the bathing area, the basin rim rises to about half a metre in order to dam up the water. Shortly before the water, well-tempered by a thermostat, pours out of the voluminous yet economic shower head, all around a curtain of water forms, “catching“ every splash.
The integrated diagnosis system of the toilet ascertains the data of the urine test and at once provides an all-clear when all blood sugar and hormone data are “safe and sound“. The sensor panel integrated into the floor in front of the wash basin ascertains weight, shares of body fat and water and transmits them to the family doctor or “web doc“.
