GROHE has supported the idea of the World Architecture Festival from the beginning and has been sponsoring it for 12 years now. What does participation in the festival give you?
We are proud to have supported WAF since its inception and appreciate the opportunity to engage in dialogue with architects and designers around the world. In addition, thanks to the festival, we have the opportunity to be the first to learn about emerging micro and macro trends in the field of architecture; better understand the needs of those for whom we work - now and in the future. Think over the steps to play an even more significant role, moving from supplier status to partner status.
We see ourselves as active partners in architectural processes. Together with colleagues, we are thinking about saving resources, sustainable development, what problems architects and designers face and how we can help them solve them. How, from our side, to improve the experience of interacting with the environment they create.
For example, one of the obvious macro trends is urbanization: people around the world are moving closer to urbanized landscapes. And we are trying to understand what this means in terms of the scale of the daily used spaces, in terms of changing the daily rituals. Or how wellbeing will transform our environment in the coming years.
Many of our products have been developed in the wake of these discussions. As our hit, the GROHE Blue Home water system, responding to the need of metropolitan residents to get clean drinking, tasty water, including chilled or carbonated, quickly, simply and without all those plastic bottles, directly from the mixer in their own kitchen.
Last year you established your own Water Research Prize at the WAF. What is the purpose of this initiative? Which project won this year and what does this mean for its further development?
The topic of the Water Research Prize of the competition is much broader than water, roughly speaking, from a mixer. It is about how to properly use such a valuable natural resource and preserve its reserves. This year there were a lot of interesting ideas, but the winner was the project of Maria Kuzhma and her team from Brazil, which we preferred for its powerful educational component. Recycle Build Brazil is a two-step concept about the interaction of water, natural environment and man-made environment. Phase one in San Jose is building a new wing of an existing school - predominantly made from recycled materials, equipped with solar panels and a rainwater harvesting system. The water will be reused through an underground closed loop to irrigate the gardens around the school and replenish artificial reservoirs - they will help cool the building during the hot season. Pupils of the school will be able to see and study every link of this system - as well as residents of the district, which will appear in the second place: the construction of 400 economical houses is planned, which is most important for Brazil with its housing crisis. The £ 10,000 we give to the winner for the development of the project is a great opportunity for us to be part of a socially significant initiative, and the prize, thus, allows us to re-position the GROHE brand as socially oriented. In general, solving social problems is extremely important for our company.
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zooming 1/3 Maria Kuzhma and Paul Flowers at WAF 2019 Courtesy of GROHE
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zooming 2/3 Recycle Build Brazil Project Wins Water Research Prize for Water Research at WAF 2019 Courtesy of GROHE
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zooming 3/3 WAF 2019 Water Research Prize Winner Recycle Build Brazil Project Courtesy of GROHE
What products do you consider to be the most socially oriented?
Almost everything. One of our main principles is ecological enjoyment: it is when the concern for user convenience can be combined with sustainable development technologies - which, you must admit, is socially oriented in itself. For example, we reduce the amount of water that the mixer uses. But it sprays the jet more strongly, and people do not experience discomfort. We are researching how to make our products more efficient and transformable, and we have made a shower head that is very easy to adjust the height. The same GROHE Blue water system is already 10 years old, and we are constantly improving and improving it. We have recently developed a mobile application that informs when it is time to change filters. However, in addition to convenience, this system is also super eco-friendly: according to our calculations, it allows the average family of 4 to avoid the use of 800 large plastic bottles per year and thus reduces CO2 emissions by 60%.
We approach our own production with similar requirements. For example, our plant in Klaeng (Thailand) is partially solar-powered, and during 2020 we plan to bring all five of the brand's production facilities and logistics centers in Germany to a zero-carbon footprint model. Thus, each of our customers becomes not just a buyer and user of a product, but a bearer of our long-term strategy of sustainability and healthy lifestyles and the concept of thoughtful and sustainable consumption.
The World Architecture Festival is probably not the only venue where you communicate with architects?
Of course, we are quite well integrated into the professional community and communicate with them constantly, we conduct training seminars and conferences in different cities and countries. Their goal, among other things, is to stay within the current creative agenda for professionals. Creativity and design are very important to GROHE, in 2019 we were named “Brand of the Year” in the Red Dot Awards, and this confirms the impact of our efforts. Being creative helps us to anticipate the expectations of architects and end users, and communicating with them really enriches our business. Investing in architects is investing in the future.
