IDEA Awards at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts in Melbourne, November 2011

Bathe is proud to be a sponsor of the Multi-Residential section of the IDEA Awards.

The winner of the Multi-Residential award was Neometro for the Harper Lane Project. The project was seen to offer a very clear resolution to the challenges presented by multi-residential development.

There were two commendations awarded for this category - one went to Smart Design Studio for the interior design of Jean Nouvel's Central Park West project in Sydney, the other to emerging designer Anthony Gil, for the fitout of an apartment in a Harry Seidler building in Potts Point.

There were around 500 people at the ACCA and it was a sold out function. Definitely the Interior Award event of the year.

KALDEWEI International Marketing and Product Development Director, Nicole Roesler visit to Sydney in October, 2011

Nicole then travelled on to Sydney for the day. Sydney turned on beautiful weather for the day to give her its best impression. She gave the same presentation as in Melbourne about the direction of KALDEWEI as a luxury brand to a group of architects, interior designers, media and retailers. This function was held at the beautiful Andrew 'Boy' Charlton pool in the Botanical gardens. We would like to thank all of those who attended for your interest and support.

KALDEWEI International Marketing and Product Development Director, Nicole Roesler visit to Melbourne in October, 2011

This was Nicole Roesler's first visit to Australia and it was a flying visit before she went on a whirlwind tour through Asia. Her first day was spent in Melbourne where she gave a presentation in the Melbourne Showroom about her experience establishing KALDEWEI as a luxury brand. Nicole comes from a prestigious background of working with luxury brands such as MontBlanc, Swatch and Escada and has bought her expertise in this area to KALDEWEI since 2008. The direction that KALDEWEI has taken since she has taken over the marketing area has been dramatic and this was evident in in her presentation which showed the KALDEWEI brand excursion to be positioned as a luxury brand.

Victorian, Western and South Australian Retailer Tour to KALDEWEI, LAUFEN and HANSGROHE in October 2011.

Retailers from Victoria, WA and SA travelled to Germany and Switzerland to get first-hand knowledge and experience of the design and manufacturing of our high-end bathroom products.

Firstly, they visited Kaldewei located at the top of Germany in Ahlen. They witness the huge steel presses creating the high quality 3.5mm steel enamel, saw the impressive new logistics centre and each experienced the whirl baths in the Kaldewei Competence Center as well as viewing the current presentation of the latest baths and shower floors.

At Laufen, they saw Laufen ceramic clay pieces being hand-finished and sent to the kiln, toured the Laufen Forum, which is a huge concrete building cast in one piece designed by Nissen Wentzlaff Architects as well as touring the key architectural sites in nearby Basel.

Lastly they visited Hansgrohe located in Schiltach, in the middle of the Black Forest in Germany. Hansgrohe has a huge training and showroom area called the Aquademie which contains displays of their products, training rooms and a Bathroom Museum. The retailers were also taken to a wine tasting at a nearby castle and shopping at Strasbourg as well as guided tours through the tapware factories and logistics centre.

Our suppliers really looked after our retailers and the retailers relished the incredible opportunity to see the manufacturing close-up - something which is very hard to see in Australia on such a large scale.

Cersaie at Bologna, Italy in September,2011

Cersaie is the International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom furnishings held every September in Bologna, Italy and is attended by architects, designers and accredited journalists from all over the world. All of our major brands exhibit at Cersaie at their beautiful stands.

The various conferences and symposia in the third edition of Cersaie's cultural programme "Building Dwelling Thinking" were especially well attended by architects, designers and students. Almost a thousand people attended the keynote lecture by Kazuyo Sejima and the "lesson in reverse" given by Alessandro Mendini, which included a particularly strong student presence. The Architecture Gallery was also fully packed out for the meetings with Giorgio Bianchi from Renzo Piano Building Workshop on New York architecture, with Cameron Sinclair on the initiatives of Architecture for Humanity, with Kengo Kuma on projects in Japan and worldwide, and with Patricia Urquiola on her vision of design.

The 30th Cersaie will be held in Bologna from 25 to 29 September 2012.

ISH March 2011

In March, Bathe sent representatives to Germany to visit our brands factories and get first-hand experience on how these unique products are manufactured. In Germany they visited KALDEWEI in Ahlen and HANSGROHE in Schiltach. In Switzerland they visited LAUFEN in Laufen near Basel.

They then attended ISH, the world's leading trade fair for the bathroom experience in Frankfurt.

The ISH brings together two trade fairs under one roof: energy building and air-conditioning technology and the bathroom experience.

Held every two years under this combination the ISH draws around 2,400 companies together onto a fully booked trade fair site (250,000 square metres) – including all market and technology leaders. This leading world trade fair has already been held for more than 50 years – more than 5 decades therefore that stand for growth, continuity and a successful trade fair concept. In short: for a half century of success. The next ISH will be held in 2013.

Bathe Black Dot Cocktail Party at Andrew "Boy" Charlton Poolside cafe on 10th November, 2010

Another successful Bathe event was held to celebrate the sponsorship of the Multi Dwelling Award at the IDEA (Australian Design) Awards. Approximately 130 guests, mainly architects and designers and architectural media representatives, turned up to the Black dOt Cocktail party featuring the Kaldewei Black Ellipso Duo Oval Bath, the Hansgrohe exclusive preview of the new PuraVida Tapware collection both designed by the prestigious Phoenix Design and also the Laufen Il Bagno Alessi Dot Basins designed by Wiel Arets for Alessi.

The venue was Boy Charlton Pool Café overlooking Woolloomooloo Wharf, Sydney Harbour.

Yes, the two girls are identical twins!

Harvey Norman Commercial Brand Training on Friday, 10th September, 2010 at Bathe Head Office Sydney.

Harvey Norman Commercial from across Australia came to Sydney to train on Kaldewei, Hansgrohe and Laufen bathroom brands. They spent the day at the Bathe Head Office in Leichhardt and then had dinner at the historical Harbourview Hotel at the Rocks where they heard Darren Flanagan, who was crucial to the rescue of Todd Russell and Brant Webb from the infamous Beaconsfield mine disaster, relate his extraordinary experience to them.

Graffiti bathroom at Bathe Saturday Indesign on 6th & 7th August, 2010

Street Art meets International Design - At Saturday Indesign, BATHE got two of Melbourne's influential street artists from everfresh studios together for the creation of a street art piece.

The laneway of the South Melbourne showroom was transformed into a live art studio with retro speakers et al and they let loose with spray paints and brushes and created a one-off art object consisting of a LAUFEN Il Bagno Alessi dOt Pedestal washbasin and toilet, both designed by international designer Wiel Arets.

The end result was a unique pop-up and pop-art bathroom.

"Bathrooms of Tomorrow" Seminar with Roberto Palomba on Friday 4th June, 2010 at Bathe Melbourne Showroom

On Friday, 4th June a seminar was held on "Bathrooms of Tomorrow" with Roberto Palomba of Palomba Serafini Associati, Milan at the new Melbourne Showroom in Craine St, South Melbourne. It was a unique opportunity to hear from one of Europe's esteemed designers of today. Roberto was visiting Australia on behalf of LAUFEN Bathrooms. There was firstly an introduction by Ivan Zupanovic (International Sales and Marketing Manager, Laufen Bathrooms) who showed us the care and expertise required to attain the quality of Laufen products to achieve Swiss standard and how part of this process is getting luminary designers to conceive these distinctive products.

Roberto Palomba is one of these key designers and it was a pleasure to have him visit Sydney and come to talk to the designers and retailers.

The main points he covered were:

His experience with the technical realization of the product from his
concepts. Roberto enjoys working very closely with the Laufen engineers in order to create brilliant, aesthetic products that require experienced craftsmanship along with creating a product that was technically difficult to copy and so remained unique in the market. Such a product is his 1600mm Washplane.

He also discussed the idea of designing a bathroom as an important living space and how he designs ranges with idea of lifestyle and ability of the range to adapt to various lifestyles. Every product that he has designed for Laufen takes into account that a person has personal tastes and so his sanitaryware can be adapted into many different designs and uses.

Bathe Design Showroom opening event in South Melbourne, Thursday 3rd June,
2010

Around 200 guests attended the grand opening evening event for Bathe's first showroom in Melbourne on the 3rd June, 2010 in conjunction with Monument Magazine as its media partner. A special guest was world-renowned designer Roberto Palomba who was on hand at the unveiling of this showroom which features many of his products designed for LAUFEN bathrooms.

The showroom displays the brands of KALDEWEI and LAUFEN, Europe's foremost bathware and sanitaryware producers, HANSGROHE and AXOR, the world's leading tapware and shower makers and KANERA, for the most sculptural designs in basins, to give architects and designers access to bathroom fittings from the world's leading manufacturers and renowned designers such as Alberto Alessi, Philipe Starck, Roberto+Ludovica Palomba, Antonio Citterio and Patricia Urquiola.

Located at 1 Craine Street, South Melbourne, the space has been created to present bathroom settings where the designer collections can be seen in innovative settings that give designers ideas of how they can be used such as the luxurious Axor Urquiola bathroom designed by Patricia Urquiola and the LAUFEN Mimo bathroom designed by Phoenix Design, inspired by the desire (and requirement), for a little luxury in a space-challenged location, e.g.
the inner-city apartment.

In addition, Bathe have dedicated space to product displays where you can see a small extension of the massive offering available from these major European brands, including products such as washbasins and baths which give the specifier an idea of choice. An innovative example is the KALDEWEI shower-floor display where a number of these beautiful and incredibly functional porcelain-finished products are displayed on the wall in a very large ornate frame.

30 Days of Home & Entertaining, April 2010

Magazines gathered together to create an interactive event; bringing the pages of magazines to life by giving readers the opportunity to meet editors, stylists, designers and industry experts in one space.

A 'live' house was built from scratch and throughout the month of April it kept changing and evolving to demonstrate the diversity of the magazines; showing initial concepts through to styling each room.

There were many events to demystify decorating, with a stage of all the elements of how a home design can be explored and everything put together to plan a home.

From interiors, gardens, food, wine and money (even tips on how to be financially savvy).

Bathe had several products displayed in the 'live' Bathroom

KALDEWEI Ellipso Duo Oval freestanding bath.

LAUFEN Il Bagno Alessi One floorstanding toilet

LAUFEN Il Bagno Alessi One pedestal washbasin

AXOR Starck taps and accessories.

A seminar was held in the 'live' House on bathroom renovation which was sponsored by Geberit conducted by Stylists from Belle and House & Garden where public were able to present their problems for solutions and ideas on styling and renovating bathrooms were discussed.

Saturday Indesign New Products Release Event Friday 31st, July, 2009 and Saturday 1st August, 2009.

Bathe celebrated the launch of a wide range of new products and collections by Kaldewei, Laufen, Hansgrohe and Kanera with a cocktail function at Warehouse 625 in Surry Hills as part of Saturday Indesign.

Black is back with the new freestanding Ellipso Duo Oval from Kaldewei on display along. Hansgrohe “World of Styles” of tapware inc. new Focus E2, Talis S2 and Talis Classic was on display along with the stunning new shower system by Phillipe Starck. Also on display from LAUFEN  was the Il Bagno Alessi dOt Collection designed by Wiels Aret, the Palomba Collection by Ludovica & Roberto Palomba and the Il Bagno Alessi One collection by Stefano Giovannoni .”

Seminar and Lunch with Roberto Palomba on 19th February, 2009

On Thursday 19th February, 2009 a seminar and lunch was held with Roberto Palomba of Palomba Serafini Associati, Milan at the Bathe Training Centre in Leichhardt, Sydney. It was a unique opportunity to hear from one of Europe’s esteemed designers of today. Roberto was visiting Australia on behalf of LAUFEN Bathrooms. There was firstly an introduction by Ivan Zupanovic (International Sales and Marketing Manager, Laufen Bathrooms) who showed us the care and expertise required to attain the quality of Laufen products to achieve Swiss standard and how part of this process is getting luminary designers to conceive these distinctive products.

Roberto Palomba is one of these key designers and it was a pleasure to have him visit Sydney and come to talk to the designers and retailers. The main points he covered were:

His experience with the technical realization of the product from his concepts. Roberto works very closely with the Laufen engineers in order to create brilliant, aesthetic products that require experienced craftsmanship.

The difference between industrial design and architecture from the viewpoint of non-interaction or interaction with the eventual user.

How he designs ranges with idea of lifestyle and ability of the range to adapt to various lifestyles. Every product that he has designed for Laufen takes into account that a person has personal tastes and so his sanitaryware can be adapted into many different designs and uses.

He also discussed the idea of designing a bathroom as an important living space and that the introduction of natural light into bathrooms is a key part of this.

The seminar with Roberto was extremely successful and we have been getting a lot of positive feedback from it.