Designer pushes boundaries with imagination

To further celebrate the partnership at Milan Design Week 2024, the collaborative product Formation 02 smart toilet was unveiled at FuoriSalone through a large-scale and site-specific installation titled Terminal 02.

Visitors were invited to navigate through a maze-like network of industrial pipes. The industrial, brutalist products and installation sit within the grand pillars of the historic Palazzo del Senato, bringing a kind of formless aesthetic that utilizes elements of natural landscape juxtaposed with industrial and scale engineering.

Both the Formation 01 bathroom faucet and Formation 02 smart toilet were showcased in the Shanghai installation.

Ross reflects on his attraction to Kohler, noting, "What called me about Kohler was on site the amount of artisans and craftspeople...It's always so difficult to find really skilled artisans and Kohler had this vision you could say of being able to protect local artisans."

The shared commitment to craftsmanship enabled a seamless collaboration in art and design, fostering a dynamic partnership where both parties worked together as a cohesive team to solve design challenges.

"Once we had established the partnership, it would not just be a designer and a company, but it would be a co-studio where it was our architectural team and our design team integrating the Kohler's industrial design team," Ross says.