MEM
What comes after form? What value do we give to things in an age when good design and well-conceived functionality are self-evident requirements? These considerations were the starting point for developing a series of fittings that is seriously reserved in terms of form and which focuses on the deliberate, sensual experience of the element of water.
MEM does not have an extrovert design, instead, the fitting becomes the interface between the architecture and the user – leaving room, in everyday use for personal cleansing rituals in the bathroom.
Eleven years after the introduction of MEM in 2003, this fitting series now beams with a fresh glow: Dornbracht has revised the formal aesthetic elements of the series, adding products in the process and creating a new highlight in 18-karat gold in the new ‘Cyprum’ finish in pink gold.
True to its guiding principle – ‘reduce everything to the essentials, but don’t eliminate the poetry’ – Dornbracht gave the body of the fitting for single-lever mixers and bidet fittings, and the lever design for all MEM lever variations, adapted proportions and optimised technology.
At the same time, with the rosette dimensions adapted to 60×60 mm, Dornbracht presents an important step towards digital combinations with MEM: All MEM products can now be combined with outlets and controls with other designs and from other series, e.g. the Water Modules introduced in 2013 under the motto: ‘Personal needs, individual spaces’, or the Smart Water digital control technology.
As part of this refinement, Dornbracht is also introducing a new, galvanic finish that will first be available exclusively for MEM and, later on, for other, select series: Cyprum is a highly reflective finish produced on the basis of 18-karat fine gold with genuine copper.
In addition, there are two completely new product types to complement the MEM programme: With its black matte finish, the new, free-standing bathtub mixer with flow spout and bar-type, hand-held shower head emphasises the purist language of design of the fitting series. The 3-hole mixer for the bathtub edge broadens the selection by adding a new alternative with great ease of operation.
Beginning in February 2014, the refined MEM designs are available in a variety of finishes: chrome, platinum, platinum matte and the new pink gold hue Cyprum.
Product design: Sieger Design
Awards:
Good Design Award, The Chicago Athenaeum, USA
German Design Club DDC
International Forum Design, Hanover
Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany, commendation, German Design Council
red dot award: best of the best for the highest design quality, Design Centre NRW, Essen
Innovation award for architecture and technology, ISH
Good design award, Japan
A “New Classic” award from “Schöner Wohnen” magazine
Product Innovator Awards, Kitchen + Bath Business, USA
International Design, ELLE DÉCOR, France
MEM creates a new appreciation and understanding for intangible assets in life and in the bathroom – because MEM takes you straight to the heart of man, to the world inside. Because that is exactly what MEM means in Esperanto – “the self”. But there is a far deeper meaning behind the name MEM. Genes are to biological evolution what the so-called “memes” are to intellectual development. So the name MEM also stands for a new consciousness.
