The German Design Council has been holding the international competition since 2012. Every year, it looks for unique design trends which are then presented and honoured as groundbreaking contributions to the international design landscape. The award is one of the most acclaimed design competitions in the world and is highly regarded in expert circles and beyond. This year, 758 of the more than 4,000 entries came from abroad.
“The high professional standard of the competition is apparent from the unusual amount of effort the organisers put into it,” says Lars Quadejacob, one of this year’s jurors for the Bath and Wellness category. The design expert from the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin – previously editor-in-chief of specialist journal design report for many years – particularly appreciates the fact that the panel gets to see the real thing rather than just being shown pictures of the products. During the two-day judging process, the jurors had plenty of opportunity to examine the exhibits at Frankfurt Exhibition Center, where they had been set up in Hall 4. “That makes it much easier to assess the combined effect of aesthetics, materials, workmanship and functionality,” says Quadejacob.
For the bathroom furniture manufacturer from Bad Fredeburg in Germany’s Sauerland region, winning the German Design Award underscores its goal of bringing fresh impetus to the international bathroom scene in the form of its holistic design lines.
The extensive Coco furniture collection was developed in collaboration with Spanish design firm Lievore Altherr Molina. As original as they are timeless, the furnishings combine light and airy linearity with feminine softness to create compact forms that are the ideal choice for tasteful bathrooms in urban settings, where living space often has more modest dimensions.
The most striking characteristic of this highly unusual design by Jeannette Altherr is the way it plays with round and angular shapes, symmetry and asymmetry, vertical and horizontal lines. The focal point of the collection is the vanity unit with its mineral cast basin. It is available either as a wall-mounted version or as a floor-standing model resting on a slender black metal frame. The roundness of the mirror and bowl add a feminine element that counterbalances the straightness of the surrounding cubes. One particularly eye-catching innovation is the mirror cabinet with its almost poetic lighting effect: thanks to the smooth gradient of the mirrored surface and the indirect lighting, Coco’s perfectly circular mirrored door conjures up associations with a glowing disc hovering over the horizon.
The Coco collection by German bathroom furniture specialist burgbad has won the German Design Council’s German Design Award 2017 (category: Bath and Wellness). The fuss-free design, developed in collaboration with Spanish firm Lievore Altherr Molina, combines light and airy linearity with feminine softness to create compact forms that are the ideal choice for tasteful bathrooms in urban settings