Ceramic is alive. It breaths, changes, is fickle.
Even the climate and its changes in external temperature and humidity, influence the production yield. The industrial production cycle is long, consisting of many stages where human presence is still important and indispensable. Azzurra has been manufacturing ceramics for over 25 years; it conceives it with great respect, knows and understands it, pushing the processing techniques to its extreme. It is a company that is able to express its time with sensitivity, reflecting and interpreting the diversity of contemporary shades with creativity and discretion; it is a reality composed of people who share the same values, which daily commit their energy and thoughts to create products that are the perfect synthesis of form and content. Azzurra design is expression of the heterogeneous nature of its designers who see the bathroom with a slower pace and which invades our living with his sense of security and familiarity thanks to its reassuring surrounding and softness.
Investing in research and development of design-oriented solutions is the way that Azzurra has been following for some years now. A new series designed by Gordon Guillaumier is going to be officially presented at Cersaie 2010. It is going to be part of a wider and diversified catalogue that only in the last 2 years, has been enriched with 6 special projects and 4 new collections.
The last important efforts were also focused on minimizing water consumption. This approach has become, for the company, a duty as well as a personal and civil liability that it is impossible to waive in order to ensure future generations a decent quality of life.
GLAZE (design Gordon Guillamier) design 2010- 2011
“I’ve often thought about the utility of bathroom ceramic ware whilst standing naked in front of the glossy monolithic white shapes, exposing my intimate self to carry out daily washing, grooming and bathroom chores. A primitive ritual, familiar to all irrespective of social class or culture, that has always had a strong and sound democratic value to me”.
This very thought came to mind when Gordon Guillamier was commissioned by Azzurra to design a new bathroom series composed of 10 ceramic pieces. The concept of nakedness suggested essence and pure form and was to become a leitmotiv for the Glaze design series, inspired by the softness and functional spirit found in the honest shapes of laboratory beakers and flasks.
Emphasis was placed on the proportions and dimensions of each item to making them suitable for both domestic and public bathroom spaces where the concept of limited space is commonplace to modern living. The same emphasis was also applied to maintaining uniformity of shape, so that every piece reflects the same mood and philosophy, keeping a visual harmony throughout the entire collection.
The Glaze series has a restrained design approach to out live passing fads and trends so that from the moment they are installed in a bathroom space, they would be naturally inclined to become enduring extentions of the architecture in which they are allocated.
The series is composed by no. 2 cm. 60 and 75 cm. wall-hung washbasins, no. 2 cm. 50 and cm. 75 inset washbasins, no. 1 cm. 60 over-counter washbasin, wall-hung WC and bidet, floor WC and bidet and 1 monoblock WC.
AZZURRA RECEIVES CERTIFICATION FOR THE EFFECTIVE FUNCTIONING OF THE 2.7 LITRES FLUSHING
Thin (Angeletti Ruzza design ) is a range of sanitary wares composed of more than 20 ceramic pieces including WC, bidet, monoblock WC., washbasins and furniture washbasins.
It has been designed to serve architects: a wide range of sizes allows to furnish any kind of environment, a contemporary language featured by almost obsessive attention to the proportions, that make shapes fine and thin.
"We imagined to carve a shape, in particular, we moulded the pieces numerous times to refine their scale; our workmanship on prototypes has allowed us to draw the lines and make them streamlined, our goal was, in fact to achieve a floating effect, like the pieces were suspended in the air." (Angeletti Ruzza design).
New radius of curvature in ceramic, away from the standard we are used to, giving the finished product a more "expressive technicality "
The matt white finish with which the series is presented becomes also a design element: a thorough research on the “skin” of ceramic materials as well as a particular manufacturing have allowed to make it opaque and easily “matchable” with new materials of the bathroom environment.
The range consists of 7 wall-hung washbasins in different sizes and shapes, three over-counter washbasins and a washbasin for disabled people. It includes 55x36 floor and wall-hung WC and bidet and 48x36 floor and wall-hung WC and bidet, one monoblock WC and a 75x36 cm. wall-hung WC for disabled people. In total, the series includes up to 10 sanitary wares and 11 washbasins in different sizes and shapes. The WC for disabled people has all the features of the wall-hung WC.
Thin now officially reached an important milestone, achieving certification on all its WC range, operating a complete single flush with 2.7 liters of water in compliance with European standard UNI EN 997:2007 for Class 2 WC, whether associated with flushing cisterns available on Azzurra catalogue.
This means that if a family of 4 people flushes 20 times per day, the water saving with the certified method by AZZURRA of 2,7 liters is of 31.000 liters per year: about 4 years and a half of water granted per person. In many developed countries at least one quarter of drinking water ends up in WC every day, 30% of domestic water consumption ends up into the bathroom draining. Each time the toilet is flushed for a single piece of toilet paper we use about 9 liters of water.
In addition to the complete Thin WC series (except for the monoblock WC), also the new Victorian Style wall hung WC collection has obtained the above certification. This model is the result of an important ethical and practical extension to the benefit of a collection of sanitary ware inspired to the past and that still covers a wide range of tastes
The wall-hung Victorian Style WC furnishes the classic bathroom, yet ensuring all the new generation sanitary wares features, first of all attention to saving water.
Water is an essential heritage for all humanity: it is renewable but not infinite, must not be wasted and each of us must necessarily feel responsible for its preservation, contributing to its protection, even through small daily actions.