Axor® Starck Organic Earns “Best of the Best” Red Dot Award

There is reason to celebrate at the Black Forest bathroom and sanitation specialist Hansgrohe (www.hansgrohe.com): Selected products from the Axor® Starck Organic collection have won the internationally coveted “red dot” design award 2013 in the product design category. A total of 4,662 products were submitted, but only 58 had the honor of receiving the highest accolade - rated as ’Best of the Best’. In addition to design, the 37 members of the jury in Essen assessed innovation, functionality, ergonomics and ecological compatibility. “A ’Best of the Best’ award”, commented a visibly pleased Philippe Grohe following the prize ceremony, “is still something very special for Axor as a designer brand. It is an important recognition of our efforts in the field of product design and in the design of the bathroom as a living space. It also affirms our strategy of focusing on the formal and emotional quality of mixers in addition to functionality,” added the Head of the Axor brand.


Sculptures for the bathroom
Axor, the designer brand of Hansgrohe SE, and the French designer Philippe Starck received a special distinction, rated ’Best of the Best’, for the basin mixer and exposed installation thermostat product families and for the concealed installation bath mixer. The bathroom mixers from the Axor Starck Organic collection wowed the jury in particular thanks to their unique design and their ergonomically sound operating concept. “The Axor Starck Organic bathroom mixers demonstrate extraordinary design quality and precision. They are remarkable sculptures suggestive of organically flowing nature. Their ergonomics and haptics are also astounding. The individual elements come together to form a successful symbiosis”, concluded the jury’s reasoning. The jury’s comments accord entirely with comments by the French designer, Philippe Starck, who developed the collection with Axor. “The collection was developed from the bottom up without preconceptions and arose solely on the basis of the technical requirements, functional parameters and semantic symbolism. In an ergonomic way, the collection allows you to save water easily and harmoniously, so the products are very environmentally friendly,” explained the renowned designer in an interview for the latest “red dot design yearbook.” Philippe Starck and Axor have been working together for more than twenty years and have jointly developed a number of successful bathroom collections.

International design from the Black Forest
Top marks for design is a Hansgrohe tradition: For many years, design awards have been finding their way repeatedly to Kinzigtal in the Black Forest, home to the successful internationally oriented company. The company has already won more than 400 awards thanks to extensive collaboration with many well-known designers and architects. Hansgrohe SE currently leads the sanitation industry in the latest ranking of the International Forum Design (iF) and is ahead of Daimler, Hewlett Packard, Loewe and Porsche.

Axor®, the designer brand of Hansgrohe SE, successfully realizes “Designer Visions for Your Bathroom" In cooperation with Axor, leading product designers, architects and interior designers develop their vision for the bathroom as a living space. The Axor collections offer a great number of unique and sustainable solutions to create personalized bathrooms of the highest aesthetic and technological levels. To date, Axor collections have been created by Phoenix Design, Philippe Starck, Antonio Citterio, Jean-Marie Massaud, and Patricia Urquiola, as well as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. They all contribute towards making life in and around the bathroom a little more meaningful and beautiful. The Axor brand is headed by Philippe Grohe.