Im Gespräch: Jens Wendland und Andrea Weitz

Adeline Seidel: So what exactly do you so dislike about hard spaces?

Andrea Weitz: Nothing of course (laughs). But we found it exciting to ponder what could still be of interest for bathrooms and water zones. There are thousands of mixers and sanitary objects. And we therefore asked ourselves what new materials there are that could define spaces and have to do with water. Isn’t it nicer to sit or wallow or stand on a soft material when in the tub instead of on a hard one on which you could slip and fall? Would it not simply be a new experience to touch soft bathroom and sanitation furniture?

Jens Wendland: With completely new materials we simply want to encourage people to think again. It’s not as if all bathrooms should now look like our renderings. That’s not the idea. But the days when only the aspect of hygiene is emphasized when designing bathrooms are over. We took the competition as a reason to start reinterpreting what possibilities there are for bathrooms.

But if I look at your visualizations it is as though water has taken the back seat. So how will I experience water in the “Soft Revolution”?

Jens Wendland: Water needn’t always flow from the mixers. For example, we imagine a bath tub where the water seeps in through a porous material in the sides, filling it with water. You could also go for woven, 3D-woven objects, or ones made of silicone.

Andrea Weitz: There are so many materials that no longer rot and are hygienic, that you can wash thoroughly or that even cleanse themselves. With the new generation of materials, smoothness is no longer necessary for cleanliness. When we meet up in 50 years’ time, we’ll be wandering about in rooms that are so very different from today’s that it is hard to imagine them at all.

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