October 23, 2014

DXV
by American Standard – named for the company’s 15th decade in business –
has invited six designers to create month-long window installations for
this new line at its new luxury bathroom and kitchen flagship showroom
at 15 West 20th Street in New York City. The idea behind this project,
which began in July, is to feature the DXV products and express the
inspiration behind each designer’s choice of fittings and fixtures. 

Alison Spear and her October window

October’s
window display by Alison Spear, AIA, LEED AP, IIDA, director at
ArquitectonicaINTERIORS, plays on the four most important design
movements of the last 150 years – from Classic to Golden Era to
Contemporary – to illustrate where we were then and where we are today.
The faucets and fixtures used in her window, which are not
reproductions, reimagine and reinterpret historically significant
designs – blending the artisanal character of the past with the
aesthetic sensibilities and performance demands of today. This means
almost any DXV product can be paired with another – no matter what their
respective aesthetic heritages. 

A closeup of the fixtures Spear used in her design

Susan
Serra, CKD, CAPS, founder of Bornholm Kitchen, started this project in
July with inspiration from the DXV Contemporary collection’s modern yet
timeless polished chrome pot filler. She surrounded the filler with
Danish mid-century modern furnishings and art, and in the adjoining
window she paired a DXV Orchard stainless steel sink from the Classic
movement with a DXV Fresno polished-chrome culinary faucet from the
Modern era on a floor of garden mulch dotted with fine china plates and
fresh artichokes. 

Susan Serra and her July design

In
August, Sophia Chan, senior associate/director of New York hospitality
at VOA Architecture, designed her window with fittings from the
Contemporary movement, including the brushed nickel DXV Percy vessel
faucet with a stem handle and the polished chrome, angular Slim
showerhead. She installed the Slim showerhead in a forest of upright
copper pipes emerging from pooled ropes of Lasvit crystals. The
neighboring vignette features a vortex of large copper rings swirled
around the spotlighted Percy vessel faucet.

August went to Sophia Chan and her team

Last
month, Laura Bohn, principal of Laura Bohn Design, drew on the
Contemporary movement for her two vignettes (below). She chose a pair of
DXV Seagram lavatories – one square, one round – matched with DXV Percy
single lever faucets with stem and loop handles. The porcelain sinks
are intended for wall mounting, but Bohn displayed one on the back of a
vintage bicycle, while the other is exhibited atop a 1930s washing
machine drum.

The
November window goes to Masayuki Sono and Ostap Rudakevych,
co-principals of Clouds Architecture Office. Barbara Kurgan, principal
of BKOK, will design the December window.