Saint Kate hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA worked alongside the “KOHLER Create’ team to design meaningful, custom basins in their 2019 renovation.
Saint Kate’s Leopard Bedroom Suite
This major upgrade transformed the 1987 built hotel into Milwaukee’s first Visual Arts hotel.The hotel’s idea of offering new experiences to broaden people’s ways of looking at the world was very much in line with Kohler’s vision through design, and innovations such as Kohler’s WasteLab. The latter, more like a studio with craftsmen than a factory – takes waste materials and recycles them into things of beauty, like their hand made range of crackle tiles made from porcelain scraps. These tiles were used in the hotel bar/dining area.
The Hotel Bar on the ground floor
The black and white ribbon, part of Saint Kate’s visual signature for fluidity was one of the ideas developed further by KOHLER and incorporated by hand onto the Veil basin, creating a design story of both inspiration and the journey involved in creating this piece of ‘art’.
KOHLER Veil Basin with ribbon motif
Like Saint Kate, they looked at the possibilities of how to make something special that was more than ‘just a basin’. The result installed into the hotel’s 219 rooms is special for Saint Kate, special for KOHLER and special for the customers using them.
Lush green foliage is an excellent way to soften the hard, straight lines that so often proliferate in a bathroom – think tiles, vanities, mirrors, windows, shower recesses etc
Just a single plant, from a fern to a succulent, will introduce a pleasing, relaxing ambience to the bathing space – but there are other benefits to including living greenery in the bathroom. Clean air and health!
Indoor air can be more polluted than the air outside, as bathrooms, by their very nature, contain many chemicals – from those emitted by surface materials to shampoos, soaps and chemical cleaners.
Plants are the perfect ‘green’ way of improving the quality of the air – they require little effort and negate the need for an expensive air purifier.
Experts at NASA have spent time identifying the best indoor plants for removing toxins – but make sure the plant you choose is also the best suited to your bathroom’s light conditions, temperatures and any draughts.
Here are six plants, recommended by NASA for removing air-borne toxins, that could be grown in the bathroom:
SNAKE PLANT
(Sansevieria trifasciata)
Keep them fairly dry and grow in indirect light. Fertilise during growing season. One of the easiest indoor plants to grow.
GOLDEN CANE PALM
(Dypsis lutescens)
Requires plenty of light and a good balance of moisture, fertiliser and warmth. Brings a tropical lushness to the bathroom.
ALOE VERA
(Aloe barbadensis mill)
Grow in indirect sunlight in a dry soil (like a cactus potting mix). Water during growing period but never allow to stand in wet soil (ensure pot has plenty of drainage holes). The leaves contain a gel that can be used on skin conditions and superficial cuts for its soothing, antimicrobial properties.
ENGLISH IVY
(Hedera helix)
An easy plant to grow indoors and can be planted in hanging baskets to allow the leaves to cascade or can be trained to climb a stick or pole. Can tolerate lower light and requires a cool environment and a reasonable amount of water.
PEACE LILY
(Spathiphyllum mauna loa)
Grow in a warm spot away from direct sunlight – it will tolerate low levels of light. Water regularly so that the potting mix is moist at all times. Yellow leaves mean it is receiving too much light.
SPIDER PLANT
(Chlorophytum comosum)
Will tolerate low to bright light conditions but keep away from direct sunlight. Requires minimal watering. Very hardy plants that even enjoy being pot bound!
Just one plant will make a difference to both the ambience and the air purity in your bathroom – but think about groups of plants, perhaps in a corner of the floor, or suspended from the ceiling in baskets.
Be prepared for a little trial and error initially, while you work out the plants that are happiest in the conditions that prevail in your bathing space.
One of New Zealand’s North Shore residential developers has used a lifetime of experience and architectural passion to create his own family home in the lush rural countryside of the North Island’s Dairy Flat.
Calling on the expertise of architect Alistair Dodds and interior designer Shannon Pepper, the owner’s brief was to create a two-storey family home for the couple and their two children. Key to his ‘dream home’ was a master bedroom with accompanying theatre room and a large, open-plan living area to take full advantage of a proposed water feature.
The owner’s favourite colour palette of black and white is in evidence throughout the home, as is his love of modernist, highly functional design. The living space has six metre ceilings and full-length glass walls, while the swimming pool has been placed under the roof, to enable year round use.
There are four bathrooms in the home, each showcasing a black and white colour palette together with Kohler’s sleek award-winning* Avid tapware in a beautiful PVD Titanium finish. A different look is achieved in each bathing space with the clever use of texture and pattern in tiles and finishes.
The Master Bathroom
The luxurious master bathroom exudes sybaritic indulgence – from the deeply relaxing hydrotherapy spa bath to the statuesque 1500mm Terrace vanity with double vitreous china basins and unique ‘FreeDrain’ waste system plus spacious natural oak integrated storage drawers. The all black bathroom achieves plenty of light reflection with the clever mix of Crystal Glass Loft Black subway tiles in a combination of high gloss and textured finishes while the large scale black Mek Dark wall tiles are finished with white grout.
Products Featured
The Avid tapware is complemented with matching Avid bathroom accessories.
A second bathroom achieves a virtual reverse of the chosen colour palette with striking 1200mm x 600mm honed Calacatta marble wall and floor tiles featuring deep grey veining. Again, the wall hung Veil Intelligent toilet offers a sculptural take on a traditionally utilitarian fixture.
The Veil, with its French curve heated seat, is richly featured with advanced bidet functions controlled by a one-touch remote control and a self-cleaning bidet wand.
Other features include the Bluetooth enabled Moxie showerhead together with the Exhale multifunction shower and the sleek, low profile ModernLife basin.
All pieces in the bathroom have been selected for their understated crisp, modern lines that together create a sense of privacy and tranquillity bathed in soft light.
It’s true that black is having a major moment in bathrooms and the new, Mica super slim basin confirms the brand is again on-trend.
The beautifully elegant Mica black countertop vessel is an immediate show-stopper. The Mica is available in both a square and round format, bringing a very refined sense of style to any bathroom.
What makes Mica such a popular basin choice is that Kohler has developed a new super-ceramic whereby the walls of the basin are incredibly slim – just 6mm – giving the appearance of extreme delicacy and elegance. Yet the Mica basins are outstandingly durable and even harder than traditional vitreous china!
Each of the basins features Kohler’s CleanCoat™ finish that creates an invisible stain-resistant surface that ensures the basin retains its original glossy, pristine good looks after many years of use.
The Mica honed black countertop basins come in two designs – 393mm square and a 410mm diameter round version. There are also gloss white versions of the Mica available.
Converge – it’s the very latest in showering technology! This piece of ingenuity sees sleek design converge with space-saving smarts to create a truly multifunctional showerhead that features a cleverly integrated hand shower.
The 152mm diameter flat-faced showerhead is wall mounted and at first glance appears to be a simple, large format showerhead – but its exterior rim almost magically detaches from the magnetic docking station and becomes a very convenient, separate hand shower!
Converge, with its advanced spray engine, provides three powerful spray patterns while using only 9 litres of water a minute (WELS 3 star rated). The showerhead literally sculpts water!
Choose from the dense, luxurious Silk spray; or Infinity – three spray experiences in one (complete cleanse, refreshing massage and delicate rinse); or Full Coverage for a drenching, all-encompassing spray.
In sleek polished chrome, Converge features an easy clean spray face that simply wipes clean with a damp cloth, without any build-up of minerals. It also has Kohler’s premium finish to retain a long, enduring and unblemished polished chrome surface.
Converge, with its innovative 2-in-1 space-saving design is an exciting development for all those who love a luxurious, ultra-responsive shower but may have less space than they wish! The release of this product coincides with Kohler’s 145th anniversary – 145 years of ongoing revolutionary design and innovation for the bathroom.
Converge, with a recommended retail price of $199, is available nationally from major plumbing retailers. The shower arm is available separately at $79.
Global bathroom designer, Kohler, has released a high calibre range of tapware that brings quality and design within the reach of first home buyers and cash-strapped renovators.
Taut features classic, streamlined design and high quality polished chrome finish – but it’s what is not visible that sets this tap apart.
Kohler uses the highest quality materials in its state-of-the-art factories that each have a global sustainability goal of net zero by 2035. Each basin and kitchen mixer features durable ceramic valves that have been tested to 1,000,000 on/off cycles – the equivalent of 50 years of domestic use. All hoses are of flexible stainless steel. And the polished chrome finish resists scratching, corrosion and wear to a level that is twice the industry standard.
The Taut collection features a choice of regular and tall basin mixers, each with a user-friendly flat-tab lever, plus a wall mount mixer. Each has a WELS rating of Five stars (less than six litres per minute).
These are supported by shower/bath mixers with and without diverter plus a choice of regular Trim kit or Slim Trims together with a wall mount bath spout.
The collection also has a kitchen mixer featuring the same classically simple, clean lines, goose neck spout and Five star WELS rating (less than 6 litres per minute).
