Hansgrohe's PuraVida collection is my personal best in show

One of the primary reasons the the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show exists is to provide manufacturers with a time and a place to announce new products. Though KBIS was a little thinner than it's been in previous years, there were new product launches aplenty. Out of all the wonderful things I saw in Chicago, what stands out for me is the new PuraVida collection from Hansgrohe.

It's impossible to describe Hansgrohe's 2400 square foot trade show booth adequately. The scope and scale of some of the larger booths at KBIS shouldn't be called booths at all. Installation is a better description. I mean, imagine 10 to 15 fully outfitted (and plumbed) luxury baths adrift in a sea of white carpet. Think huge video screens and hordes of attractive people gathering around an espresso bar. The larger booths, and Hansgrohe's is definitely one of the larger booths, have offices and break rooms, conference centers and lighting schemes on par with something you'd see in a theater.

Out of all the glories that were on display in Hansgrohe's booth, none came close the beauty and function of their new PuraVida Collection.

The PuraVida collection was commissioned by Klaus Grohe and designed by Phoenix Design of Stuttgart. It's a study in serenity and the cool white and chrome exteriors hide a wealth of innovations and efficiencies.

I really like the shape of the lavatory faucet.

And this ceiling-mounted shower makes so much sense I can't believe no one's ever thought of this before. Think about it. Most ceiling-mounted showers are round, but the shape of a human being's shoulders, chest and back are rectangular. Why waste water?

By far, my favorite component in this collection and my hands-down favorite new product is the hand-held shower.

Tucked inside of that hand mirror-sized shower head is a marvel of engineering I wouldn't have believed had I not seen it with my own eyes and let it run over my own hands.

I use a hand-held shower and some day, if I'm really good, maybe I'll have one of these babies. I'm around new kitchen and bath stuff all the time and rarely do I come down with a case of I must have this. This is one of those rare occasions.

This shower has what Hansgrohe calls the Caresse Five-Finger Massage setting and you can see it at 1:20 and 3:20 in this video.





Caresse is five streams of water and each stream makes an interlocking figure eight pattern as it sprays. I've never seen anything like it and I think we can safely call this feeling I have love.

The entire PuraVida collection uses Hansgrohe's patented system of flow restriction adds air to the water to increase the volume while decreasing the flow rate. Low-flow is about the last thing that comes to mind around these fixtures.

So Bravo Hansgrohe, you win my best in show award. I'd have named you my top pick even if you hadn't kept me fueled with espresso last weekend. Check out PuraVida and the rest of Hansgrohe's products on their website.

Jonathan Adler is my new BFF

Believe it.

Three weeks ago I got a call from the terrific Cathy Bame, the doyenne of Sub-Zero and Wolf. Cathy told me that she'd recommended me to the DuPont Corporation as a good addition to a party they were hosting in Chicago during my industry's big trade show, KBIS. DuPont was being particular about who they'd put on the guest list and somehow I made the cut.

A detail of this event that I found endlessly amusing was that the official host was none other than Jonathan Adler. To make it even more precious, the party was being held at Chicago's Adler Planetarium.

The connection between Jonathan Adler and the Adler Planetarium is coincidental by the way.

Anyhow, I was allowed to bring a date. I wanted to bring someone who would appreciate the humor of my being in the same room as the man I've made a virtual sideline out of mocking. The lucky woman I selected was none other than Cheryl Kees-Clendenon. Cheryl's a high-profile designer as well as one of the most amusing women I know. I figured that we'd have a couple of inside laughs and that would be the end of it.

The evening started with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and there were about 50 people in attendance. Most of them were DuPont marketing people, their PR agency and then the rest of the crowd were DuPont's high-performing sales people. It was a pleasant, if reserved crowd. Cheryl and I worked out way through the buffet tables and the bar and then we spotted him.

He's smaller than I thought he'd be. That makes him my height and build. It was an odd thing to be standing so close to someone who's work I've mocked so regularly. He was surrounded by a small clot of people and before I could work my way over toward him, the hostess announced that Adler was going to give a short presentation.

Jonathan Adler took the stage and proceeded to deliver about a half hour presentation on his life and his work. He reviewed his creations from his starting out days as a potter and then brought everything up to date with his stores and his interior design business. I uncrossed my arms after about five minutes.

The longer he spoke, the more I could see that Jonathan Adler's an artist who used to struggle and who can't quite believe his good fortune today. I started to see that he's an ethical business man. I started to see that he's a decent human being. He spoke candidly and honestly about his life at home with Simon Doonan, a man he married two years ago during a brief window of opportunity in California. That he was so forthright about his home life in front of a crowd completely not used to hearing such things made me see him in a light approaching the heroic frankly.

He took a few questions from the audience after his presentation and I wanted to stand up and shout, "Why aren't you an asshole?!" I passed on the opportunity.

After he was finished I walked over and introduced myself. His licensed product manager was standing next to him. Cheryl sells Adler lighting in her showroom. The four of us stood and talked for about five minutes and it was genuinely enjoyable. I'm glad I met him.

I will not be buying any orange giraffes any time soon and that evening showed me once again that I can dislike an idea but still like the person behind it. I was counting on getting a snarky post or two out of the evening but that's not at all what I got. No, what I got was a life lesson. From Jonathan Adler no less.

As an endnote, when Cheryl and I were leaving the party we ran into the VP of Marketing for DuPont Surfaces. She knew who I was and we exchanged pleasantries for a moment or two while waiting for the elevator. She told me that for the party, they'd made a concerted effort to reach out to the design blog community. "Oh really? I asked, "Who else was here?" She looked at me and said, "Well, there's you and we invited Apartment Therapy."

Apartment Therapy. Ugh. I hope I never meet Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan and Oliver Ryan, the guys who started Apartment Therapy. With my luck they'll be decent human beings too and I'll be out of punchlines.

Jonathan Adler's stuff can be found on his website. And that my friends is a back link.

I'm back from The Windy (and cold) City

Chicago was amazing and I'll be brimming with news of the wonders I saw there in the coming days. In the meantime, endless thanks go out to my guest bloggers who filled in so ably while I was off building an empire.

Know any kitchens looking for a makeover?

The funny thing about Paul’s blog is that he doesn’t actually post a lot of his kitchen and residential design makeovers!! So I thought I’d take this opportunity as one of Paul’s guest posters to post a couple of kitchens — one real and one virtual.

My hubby and I recently finished our kitchen makeover (with some help from Paul). You can read all about it over on my blog, DesignTies. Here are a few pictures…

It was a long and at times frustrating job, but we love the results and we won’t be making any more changes to it any time soon. But the problem is that I have a great idea for a kitchen design and no kitchen to do it in. Know any kitchens looking for a makeover?? ;-)

This was actually an assignment for my Interior Finishes class. We had to design a kitchen for a single mom and her 14 year old daughter. Here’s a rendition of one wall I created in Paint:

The kitchen has white appliances, so that was my jumping off point for the design. The colour scheme came from a beautiful grey, silver, and blue paisley fabric and a blue chenille. The paint colours are Benjamin Moore: AF-570 Coastline for the walls, AF-575 Instinct for the inside of the glass cabinets, and OC-61 White Diamond for the cabinets.

The Shaker-style cabinet doors have glass knobs for some sparkle, and the drawers have stainless steel bin pulls (both from Amerock).

    

The backsplash is this awesome mosaic from Mirage Glass Tiles in NYC. The 1” x 1” tiles are a combination of glass, metal, and stone. They’re like jewelry for the kitchen :-)

The countertops are Hanstone in Sterling Grey. You can’t see them in the picture, but there are flecks of silver that give it a nice reflective quality.

The faucet is the Belo from Brizo. I love the sleek & sexy lines!!

There’s an island with two nickel lantern pendant lights from Union Lighting and Furnishings hanging above.

And three counter-height stools from BarStools.com along one side of the island. They’ll be covered in the blue chenille.

Dark hand-scraped hardwood floors to finish it all off: 

If you’d like to see more of my room makeovers and designs — both virtual and real ;-) — check out my blog, DesignTies.

Thanks for the opportunity to guest-post for you, Paul :-) Hope you had a great time in Chicago!!

Would you like light with that? The rise and rise of LEDs

Greetings, Kitchen and Residential Design readers - I'm Sarah Lloyd, I blog at KitchenClarity, mostly on kitchen and bath design, but sometimes on whatever takes my fancy that day. Thank you Paul, you are very brave to open up your esteemed publication to the likes of me.

I've just got back from KBIS, and yes, Paul's Sketch-up/American Gothic presentation was magnificent - I hope he'll be putting the whole thing up on the blog for you all to see. Naturally that was the highlight of the show, but I did also manage to notice a few other things - including how LED lighting is creeping - no, stampeding - into everything kitchen & bath. You can have it in shower heads, faucets, sinks, tubs, tiles, counter tops and just about any other surface you could think of, as well as "ordinary" applications like light fixtures:


Tub with LED Mood Lighting by Kaldewei

I think that all artists and designers - product, interior, industrial, etc. - have a secret and maybe subconscious envy of lighting designers: they get to work with the fundamental element that makes all other design possible. After all, those first paleolithic cave-painters at Chauvet wouldn't have produced anything at all without the man or woman holding the torch for them, would they?


32,000 Year Old Decor - Cave paintings at Chauvet in France

Show me an interior designer who doesn't own way too many light fixtures (and chairs, but that's another story) for their space, and I'll show you someone who isn't really a designer. So it's my theory that the coming of age of the LED as a reliable, cool, energy efficient, inexpensive and controllable light source is bringing out the repressed lighting designer in all the product and industrial designers. And in fashion designers too:


Ingo Maurer & Janet Hansen, 2002


Rhyme & Reason Creative

Now sometimes the LED lighting serves a practical purpose, in faucets and showers the light can change color to indicate the temperature of the water,


Rettangolo by Gessi

you could argue that if your vanity sink doubles as a softly glowing LED lamp you won't need a night-light in the bathroom,


Toto "Halo" Vanity Sink

and the folks at Rhyme&Reason very reasonably point out that their garments can be used as lamps too, rather than just hanging wastefully in the closet when you are not wearing them.

I think that's all baloney, or what the designers told their marketing departments (same thing?) - they are designing with light because they finally can without melting anything or burning anyone or giving them an electric shock or a shocking electricity bill, and because it's the most fun thing to design with as well as the most fundamental.

I do wonder where all this will leave us in the sustainability equation? We have this technology that lets us produce light with much lower energy costs than ever before, but we are using it to put said light into all sorts of applications that never needed light before. Even if they last 20 years, all those LED semi-conductor boards will eventually have to be broken up and their raw materials laboriously reclaimed or recycled. Are we just chasing our own tails? We're having enormous fun with it, but that, according to my dog Daisy, is pretty much what tail chasing is all about.