Large resorts want functional bathrooms

For the company, more than trends, what is pursued is product differentiation to create bathrooms with magic.

Although the Bathco Collection brand, which specializes in manufacturing and marketing a wide range of bathroom products, does not have a line exclusively for contract projects, these types of projects are among its main demands. To achieve this, they adapt their products to each request, as specified by the interior designer or architect.

Your workshop is the firm's strongest bet in R&D today, as it allows them to customize any project. Additionally, they have succeeded in lightening stones and are working on fusing materials.

Q.- What are the prevailing trends in hotel interior design for bathrooms?

R.- The trends are very diverse. To be honest, we don't have a standard for hotels; rather, depending on what the interior designer is looking for or the approach they want to give to the project, we offer one set of alternatives or another.

Certainly, we always look for products that, besides a striking design, offer functionality. That is to say, they combine and reflect both aspects, which are what's required in a hotel.

Do you try to follow trends, or do you opt for something more timeless?

R.- It depends on the project. There are boutique hotels now that are looking for a very accentuated design, with a very strong character. But there are large resorts that go for a more basic sink, with a lot of functionality.

How can you transform a bathroom into a guest experience?

R.- That's a lot of work for the interior designer, the architect, who work magic with our products and with spaces. We have a very wide range of possibilities, since we work with stone, cement, sinks in aluminum, in gold…

We're giving the sink a completely different life. It's no longer just that porcelain sink, but we have them in aluminum, zinc, microcement, etc., which allows you to create spaces ranging from very industrial to more minimalist ones, with a ‘solid surface’. We adapt.

In hotels, pieces that combine design and functionality are sought after.

Q.- What requests do these professionals usually make to Bathco?

Increasingly, and it's something we're working on at Bathco, product customization.

We were coming from an era where everything was minimalist, everything was white, you couldn't step outside of that, and now we are here to provide that life that the interior designer is looking for in our products. And what we do is not only intervene in the sinks, but also in the cladding. Using pigments and then firing them, we can achieve a sort of corten steel.

We also do micro-cement and marbles, all while respecting porcelain, which we know is a material that works phenomenally in the bathroom and that we won't have any problems with its use afterwards. All of this is completely personalized, a collaboration between the interior designer and our workshop.

They present us with an idea, give us work guidelines, we develop it and present it to them, and once we've interpreted this project, we get down to work with the brush, with the pigment, and bring these projects to ‘body and life’.

Besides the workshop, what other R&D actions are you working on?

For us, the workshop is now our strongest bet in R&D because all of this, which may seem as simple as painting a sink, is very complex and we've had to adapt our techniques to work with porcelain. And for an optimal result.

We are also working extensively with material fusion. At Cevisama, we presented some projects that fuse wood with ‘solid surface‘ to lighten the coldness of this material.

And we are also achieving much finer stones, which do not give that rustic stone appearance and allow you to place them in much more sophisticated environments. For us, who export to more than 72 countries, the issue of weight is fundamental. For the stones to weigh half of what they used to is very important for us.