Getting Playful TOTO By Hayon

When Jaime Hayon took us on a tour of the new TOTO by Hayon bathroom collection at the TOTO Indonesia showroom in Jakarta, he animatedly played with the products. Obviously, they were all delightful to touch. “The inspiration came from the contours of the human body,” he explained. “Sometimes the obvious thing to consider turns out to be the right place to look, especially when you are designing something so inexorably intertwined with bodily function.”

Hayon, who started his career as a ceramicist, had imagined this collection of sanitary ware, fittings, furniture and accessories as sculpted silhouettes. He was interested in aesthetics of harmony and fluidity, of concepts of empty and full; but he was also bent on the very modern, technical pursuit of thinness.

But colour, humour and emotions are thrown in as well; hanging above the elegantly shaped sinks and their stone consoles are mirrors that come with noses and ears. TOTO by Hayon is a pursuit of simplicity of form, sophistication of function, and a little playfulness.

The expressiveness was informed by Hayon’s observation that the bathroom is now an extension of the living room. He explained, “I would say the bathroom is no longer something that you just want to hide... In fact, you want to show the bathroom as much as you show your living room. We took that into consideration when we thought about this collection. We thought the bathroom should be designed with dignity.”

Hayon shared that the main challenge of this project was combining the technical systems with the forms and aesthetic he had imagined for the collection. “TOTO is the best in the world when it comes to technology, engineering and systems. When you work with TOTO, you are working with a company that is very serious about quality of the highest level, but at the same time we wanted to be able to play a little bit.”

Holding up a flat, beautifully finished chrome showerhead for us to see, Hayon jested, “This looks simple but believe me, this shower took us one and a half years! It is a very nice-diameter shower, it has a beautiful pressure, it has all the massage functions, but it is still very thin and you can hold it up easily. You can look at it and say, ‘Who is more beautiful than me?’”

Cubes travelled to Jakarta with W. Atelier for the launch of the TOTO by Hayon collection. Words by Yvonne Xu.