In future, our aging society will confront us with ever-greater challenges. Besides making socio-political and economic adjustments, we have to explore new avenues in design and the way our private and working worlds are organised as well.
Michael Schmidt is an internationally active product designer. In 1989, he graduated from Stuttgart University as an engineer before going on to do a postgraduate course on capital goods design at Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. He spent the first years of his career in industry at Mercedes Benz and DesignworX where, in 1994 he created the new design for AUDI's brand logo. In 1996 he founded his own design studio Code2Design in Stuttgart. Michael Schmidt sees himself as a design author who translates stories into products. In 2011 he was awarded the Aqua Cultura Prize for his services to bathroom culture.
These requirements involve a paradigm shift – especially in bathroom design. Because if a bathroom is not designed with the elderly in mind, it represents the greatest barrier of all to independent living in old age. The state provides assistance in the form of low-interest loans and has recently started subsidising age-friendly renovation projects as well. There are however minimum technical requirements that have to be met.
But do the designers and architects involved really agree with the users on the other side of the equation? Or with the various organisations and institutions concerned?
What do tomorrow’s bathrooms need to be like if they are to permit unrestricted usage in old age whilst making sure that adults and children feel equally comfortable in them?
The goal must be to create pleasant and health-promoting surroundings and come up with bathrooms based on the principles of universal design that can be planned, built and occasionally adapted to suit a certain life stage.
Lecture: Age-Friendly (Universal) Bathroom Design versus the KfW’s “Age-Friendly Renovation” Programme
Speaker: Michael Schmidt, code2design
Date: Tuesday, 10th March 2015, 15:15 - 15:45 Uhr
Location: Hall 3.0, booth E97/E99, ISH Frankfurt/Main
A complete overview about the schedule of the ISH you will find here.
Outside and inside, materials characterise the design concept of the Flemish country house. Fittings and shower solutions from Dornbracht are integrated into the design concept.
The new FlowLine shower channel from Kaldewei is particularly easy to clean thanks to the Click'n clean mechanism and can be equipped with a heat exchanger.
Thanks to Geberit's GIS pre-wall system, a
minimalist bathroom design with optimal space utilization was created in a
semi-detached house in Hamburg, Germany.
Danish architect Rasmus Jørgensen (RJ Arkitektur) on well-being in the bathroom, the importance of light and technological advances.
