With an array of bathroom wares from the world’s top brands – including Swiss marque Laufen – Carera Bathroom has become known as the go-to place for a luxury bathroom fit-out.
With an array of bathroom wares from the world’s top brands – including Swiss marque Laufen – Carera Bathroom has become known as the go-to place for a luxury bathroom fit-out.
Having long been a space for daily cleansing, bathrooms have taken on the function of a sanctuary today, a place to get away from ringing mobile phones, incoming e-mail, and incessant demands to make decisions. Just think about it – privacy is assured and you can hardly swipe your mobile devices in the shower. It’s in this quiet that some people do their best thinking. And the better designed the space, the more conducive it is for clarity of thought and relaxation.
Providing an important pillar for that design is luxury bathroom solutions company Carera Bathroom, which stocks an array of bathroom wares from the world’s top brands in its newly renovated 5,000 sq ft showroom in Tai Seng. These include Geberit, Hansgrohe, Roca and Laufen – the last being one of the world’s most feted sanitary ware labels, for which Carera Bathroom maintains exclusive distribution rights.
Just how cutting edge is Laufen? The company boasts over a century of history and expertise in sanitary manufacture. In 2013, it launched Saphirkeramik. This unique material allowed slim walls and defined rims, but had all the positive aspects of ceramic, the most hygienic, safe and recyclable material for the bathroom.
Laufen wasted no time in exploiting this feature, engaging top designers Konstantin Grcic and the husband-and-wife team of Ludovica and Roberto Palomba to explore the limits of this.
Munich-based Grcic took an architectural approach, designing clean lines and narrow edges in the Val collection. His direction is most evident in the rectangular wall-mounted washbasin (available in six widths, from 450mm to 950mm), which boast geometric lines and walls with razor-thin profiles. These are balanced by gently rounded corners, which add an organic, welcoming quality. The Val series also features bathtubs, trays and storage furniture.
In the project with Milan-based Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, Laufen took a radical approach, teaming up with plastic furniture specialist Kartell to produce an entire suite of bathroom furnishings: Kartell by Laufen. The two companies seem divergent at first: Kartell, of Italian origin, creative, colourful and iconic; and Laufen, Swiss and rigorous. But at their cores, they are both heavily invested in R&D and materials engineering.
Cleverly uniting the best of both worlds, the Palombas fashioned an interconnected ecosystem of bathtubs, cupboards, taps, footstools, lights, mirrors, shelving, tables and washbasins, in which the rigid geometry of the SaphirKeramik items is tempered by the multicoloured lightness of transparent plastic elements.
Avant garde looks incorporating innovative materials have always been the hallmark of any modern design. This sensibility is the standard at Carera Bathroom, which doesn’t just provide award-winning products but the makings of an environment that you can wind down in.
