Three Designers Earn Trips to Paris and K/BIS

New York, NY— Some search the Internet to read news or chat with friends, some go to listen to music, and still others go to further their design careers. This was the case for the three winners of American Standard’s first-ever Porcher/Jado Design Experience competition, a national contest created, according to the company, to “discover and celebrate the best in bathroom designs and trends.”

The contest was separated into powder room design and master bath design categories. The winners of both categories – John Kim and Tai Moy, partners of New York-based KIMOY, who won the master bath grand prize, and Alex Gil, winner of the powder room category – were awarded $5,000 in cash and will be flown this summer to Paris for a four-day, three-night trip where they will visit the Porcher showroom.

In addition to their Parisian getaway, the winners will be flown to this month’s Kitchen/Bath Industry Show (K/BIS), where KIMOY’s design will be constructed by American Standard at its booth (#C3735). Drawings of Alex Gil’s winning powder room design will also be on display, and all three winners will be on hand at scheduled times to discuss their designs with booth visitors.

“Being in this field, K/BIS is the only opportunity to experience what’s available [throughout the industry] in such a complete scope,” Kim remarks.

Light Inspiration

Gil reports that he spent a lot of time thinking about the glass basin sink he chose before designing the rest of the room.
“I really stared long and hard at it and asked myself, ‘What can this be?’ ” he states.

Having come across the contest on the Internet, Gil, owner of Alex Gil Design in Brooklyn, NY, decided the parameters of the powder room challenge were the right fit for him.

“I was very excited about the competition because I could explore my design ideas within those very specific parameters, which called for a windowless 5'x5' room using a combination of both Porcher and Jado fixtures,” he says.

Gil designed the room around the glass basin “Geometrique” sink from Porcher. “The room is a darkened chamber, which heightens the experience of the glowing object.”

That glowing object is the sink itself, he notes. Wishing to use the glass to its “full potential,” he positioned a light source under the sink to give it a glowing appearance. The vanities are lit from within, as are the hand towel niche, toilet paper dispenser and the drawer along the front face. “The room acts as a light chamber,” Gil wrote in his design brief, “which is only activated when the molded door is closed.” He titled the project “Light From Within.”

The shiny walls are rounded off to accentuate the vanity block’s “floating” appearance and also to contain the light emitted from the backlit objects. Gil specified seamed DuPont Corian for the vanity block to fully utilize the material’s “translucent qualities.”

Gil chose Bisazza glass mosaic tiles for the walls, radiant concrete flooring, a custom-cut polished chrome make-up mirror and a bevy of Porcher/Jado products including the “Geometrique” sink, Porcher’s “Clodia” toilet and Jado’s “Glance” faucet in polished chrome.

Gil’s current focus is on the collective Workshop for Architecture in New York City, a collaborative design studio run by architects. An alumnus of Miami’s Design & Architecture Senior High School, Gil received his training at the Irwin S. Chanin school of Architecture at Cooper Union in New York, NY and at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Retreat and Relax

Kim and Moy also discovered the competition while surfing the Internet, searching the Jado Website for fixtures.

The contest called for the design pair to create a space that is a “luxurious, spa-like retreat where a couple in their 50s can escape and unwind from their daily stresses,” according to American Standard.

“Our experience is in modern renovations in New York City, and after reviewing the brief [about the contest], we thought it was right up our alley,” says Kim.