What is the state of bathroom design in relation to water sustainability?

Gabriel Zangari, Design Group Italia: In the world of design, we strongly believe that innovation is the key to building a sustainable future. Our design philosophy is rooted in a gradual, step-by-step approach to driving ever-increasing progress. While we admire and appreciate groundbreaking inventions that attract global attention, we know that daily, widespread improvements are just as valuable. The bathroom products industry is already firmly established, but there is still ample room for refining and rationalizing its products and for them to help introduce and normalize responsible and aware attitudes to water consumption. So we are proud to show how the cutting-edge materials, technologies and design used by players in the bathroom sector, ranging from production to use by consumers, are key elements in the adoption of intuitive consumer attitudes, capable of improving our daily experiences and protecting the Earth's resources. 

GZ: “Under the Surface” recounts the complexity of the world we live in, where we can no longer analyze just the surface of things: we need to go deeper.  

Through the outcroppings, reflections of light and total immersion in the 400-m2 installation, visitors will be immersed in a tribute to the beauty and importance of water. But above all they will be find inspiration for reflecting on how natural resources and innovations can and must be harmoniously united, for the sake of a positive and very human progress.

GZ: “Under The Surface” takes the form of a submerged island, enveloping and overhanging, to remind us how great nature is, how deeply humanity is bound by a relationship of dependence to the sources of the planet, and how greatly a civilization that defines itself as mature and aware has the duty to protect and care for these primordial resources. To this spatial dimension is added a narrative level, characterized by the visual representation of data. The decision to use the intuitive language of data visualization enables visitors to become involved on several levels, constructing a narrative that envelops the space and transforms it into an immersive and multisensory experience.

Gabriel Rossi, Accurat: The project builds a narrative articulated on two levels. By dialoguing in space, they help create a complete image of the symbiotic relationship between people, water and design. 
A first level of storytelling was developed on the seabed recreated by our installation, where the reflections and refractions of light shed from above the surface of this imaginary sea, as well as underwater sounds, take the form of visualizations of data that are organic and dynamic, in some cases even zoomorphic. They tell the story of our relationship with global water resources,  through the numbers collected by the World Bank on rainfall and access to water. The World Bank data will create three striking stories, where the numbers on renewable freshwater resources per capita, those on water use and the data for precipitation will be transformed into schools of imaginary fish, underwater geysers and a data-generated sound carpet. This artistic reworking of significant factual data will accompany and surprise visitors throughout their exploration of the installation. 

Then there will be a more intimate and inward dimension, recreated inside small underwater caves, where data on product and process innovations in the field of bathroom furnishings coming directly from the brands participating in the Salone will take shape in abstract and mysterious landscapes, which we have recreated with models and holograms. Here the information gathered in a survey sent to the brands taking part will give rise to dynamic stories through their combination with product data from the vast databases provided by the Unified Water Label Association. Through this dataset and its reprocessing, we will create three sets of insights focusing on: 

1. reuse and recycling of water and plastic and metal materials during production processes and product design; 

2. technologies that make for water savings during the use of products; 

3. innovations that make it possible to reduce the energy impact and protect the environment and people's health. 

The heart of the project is therefore an alternation between exterior and interior, between macro and micro. Visitors will be able to interact with the environment and will appreciate a complete picture of the different dynamics at play in the complex and interdependent system of of water.  

Emiliano Ponzi: The event is like a great piazza, with many people talking, working, coming, going, laughing, making new acquaintances and doing business. It is not a place where a lecture would be adequate, but there are important concepts that have to be conveyed, because this is also what makes the Salone a vector of culture. 

Our main goal has been to make information accessible in a less frontal way by using wonder as our medium. 

We have created a fantastic world that takes the visitors to a different place, that seeks to amaze and excite them. In this way, captivated and lost amid submerged islands and reflections of the sun on the sea bed, at the same time they will discover data about water consumption. On approaching some niches, they will also be able to discover the less visible technologies and innovations contained in many products presented at the International Bathroom Exhibition.