Diluted water by Philippe Starck
Organic tap by Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck is renowned as one of the foremost designers in the world. More than this, the Frenchman is regarded as one of the most famous personalities in the world of design. He is involved in a broad cross-section of design, from furniture to architecture, to consumer products. Many outside of the industry will know him from his reality TV series which aired on the BBC.
Throughout all of this, one thing is central to Starck’s design philosophy — design should not intrude upon its environment, but rather should work naturally with it. He disdains design which makes life harder, purely for the sake of aesthetics.
His latest design (for Axor) is purely functional, from an environmental and economic sense. The Organic Tap effectively dilutes water with air, to save wastage, whilst intending to serve the same purpose as an ordinary tap.
“We have created a new type of water, which we call ‘empty water’,” Starck told Dezeen. “You have the feeling of having a lot of water, but with less.”
Every aspect of the tap’s design has functionality and economy of water usage in mind. The temperature is preset at the top of the tap, so that water spurts out at the required temperature every time, avoiding the wastage that normally comes with adjusting temperature on the fly. There is an ability to have a preset temperature — as Starck points out:
“We don’t need to change temperature – we always use water at more or less the same temperature.”
Ninety jets provide a combination of both water and air to give the illusion of double the rate of water flow. This truly is a step in the right direction for a planet that wastes vast quantities of clean drinkable water on a daily basis, purely through laziness.
This video, also from Dezeen, provides a great insight both into Starck’s personality and into the tap which he has designed:
