There is more to it than meets the eye when it comes to “dream” bathrooms, says Duravit, an international manufacturer of bathroom furnishings, adding that it has been a trendsetter in the industry with its innovations and exciting new forms developed in collaboration with international designers such as Philippe Starck, Norman Foster, Sieger Design, EOOS, James Irvine, Jochen Schmiddem and Andreas Struppler.

Experts from Duravit believe that selecting the right design is thus the most crucial element in creating a dream bathroom. However, a glance at the “lifetime” of a bathroom shows that this is not always as simple as it sounds since most people use one and the same bathroom several times a day for 15 to 20 years.
“A dream bathroom today goes hand in hand with a real lifestyle factor that guarantees a better quality of life as well as greater comfort and sense of well-being,” says Franz Kook, managing director of the Germany-headquartered Duravit. “The furnishing for a dream bathroom must, therefore, feature a classic and timeless design.”
“Design classics such as the bathroom by Philippe Starck, which was celebrated as a milestone in the history of bathroom designing as a straightforward but ingenious concept enjoy lasting popularity,” he adds.
However, design should never hamper functionality and it must be “enhanced with the right technology, otherwise a dream bathroom could quickly become a nightmare bathroom,” he points out.
The designer products used within bathrooms should be practical, easy to assemble and user-friendly as well as being aesthetically appealing.
What defines a dream bathroom?
According to designer Michael Sieger of Sieger Design, a welcoming feel is crucial to a dream bathroom. He believes that today’s fluid transition from the kitchen to the living area will also be reflected in an extension of the bathroom to include the sleeping area. It follows that the bathroom will become the focal point of the private living area and should include sleep, fitness and wellness, he says.
“A bathroom is a dream bathroom if it adopts this principle of opening up and elevating the experience to a new level of family relaxation and communication. Hence, bathrooms should be oriented around creating a welcoming atmosphere and incorporate the right furnishings, which play a key role in the bathroom’s new living-room quality,” he adds.
High-quality wooden surfaces, such as Ebony, Bleached Oak, Cherry tree or Rosewood, give the bathroom a lively warmth and personality. The natural warmth of wood stands in contrast to the white ceramic and acrylic surfaces of the washbasins, WCs, bidets and bathtubs and introduces a sense of the living room into the bathroom.
Sieger Design, which has already realised more than 15 joint projects with Duravit – including many bestsellers across the globe – believes that washbasins, baths and shower trays should be framed in wood to give it the “right living character”.
For Martin Bergmann from the Austria-based design trio EOOS, a “dream bathroom creates new possibilities for everyday use, where the individual gets much more than the ritual bathing experience”.
He points out that it is not the designer but the user who decides about the symbolic quality of the bath.
Bergmann has helped to develop a fold-out upholstered relaxation deck in the designing of the Sundeck bath for Duravit. In doing so, he succeeded in creating that vital element that was still missing from a dream bathroom.
“We wanted to give the bath an additional new function so that people could use it in a greater variety of ways. For example, you can quickly hide your dirty mountain-biking outfit in the bath or you can relax after taking a bath. The bath area thus has a wide variety of different uses and isn’t immediately recognisable as a bath,” says Bergmann.
Jochen Schmiddem, a designer who has set himself the task of turning emotions into designs, believes that the dream bathroom starts where a connection can be established with what is referred to as the best time of the year. “A dream bathroom has to evoke a holiday mood and attempt to preserve and restore this temporary sensation of deep relaxation. The aim is to try and have the greatest amount of enjoyment and fun in the smallest amount of space and achieve a state of total relaxation,” he says.
This is why he predominantly links a dream bathroom with products such as whirltubs or the multifunctional shower he designed for Duravit. This shower can be used, for example, as a steam bath. Alternatively, the 10 massage jets with a massage intensity of four bars help in relaxing tense neck, shoulder and back muscles, which is as calming and relaxing as a professional massage, says Duravit.
According to Schmiddem, products such as these create an ambience of luxury, enjoyment and well-being or “in other words, a holiday in one’s own bathroom”.
Andreas Struppler, a Duravit designer based in Munich in Germany, sees light as being the key factor in creating the dreamlike quality of a bathroom,
“Light and colour are an important element in improving the quality of life as it greatly influences our sense of well-being,” says Struppler. “As light is a key factor in the bathroom – where our day begins and ends – the right light ensures a good start to both the day and the night.”
According to Struppler, the lighting concept should be designed so that, first, on a purely functional level, it provides sufficient support for difficult visual tasks while at the same time, facilitates orientation for older people and children at night. Secondly, it also has to be visually and aesthetically appealing to create the right ambience.
The latter, referred to by the designer as “emotional lighting”, is important for ensuring that the day draws gently to a close.
“When the light reflects on the ceilings and walls and bathes them in myriad colours of soothing blue, stimulating red, uplifting green or a variety of colours in alternation, it enhances the soothing ambience to relax the individual.
For him, the bathroom only becomes a dream bathroom when light and colour interact to create a magic aura, when it is flooded with a profusion of colour, when every shade creates a different atmosphere.
Founded in 1817 in Hornberg, Germany, Duravit is an internationally-renowned designer bathroom brand with a product range marketed throughout the world that includes sanitary ware, bathroom furniture, shower trays, bath-tubs, whirl-pools and wellbeing systems and accessories. Today, the company no longer regards itself simply as a think-tank for beautiful design products but increasingly as a supplier of unique bathroom experiences.