PRNewswire
Singapore, December 6: LIXIL, maker of pioneering water and housing products, through its GROHE power brand is pleased to support the World Architecture Festival 2023 (WAF) for its sixteenth edition at the iconic Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. The WAF is the largest global gathering of the industry’s leading architects and designers (A&D), thought leadership and celebration of their prestigious achievements.
WAF also represents a global platform for branding, business networking and opportunities. Nearly 2,000 delegates attended the WAF and INSIDE events and over 800 entries vied for coveted awards across different categories. Out of the 55 category and special award winners, 24 were from Asia and Australasia, led by Australia (10), China (6), and equivalently placed Thailand, India and Japan (2 each).
This year’s festival theme ‘Catalyst’ marks WAF’s return to Asia, after a hiatus of almost a decade. The theme explores how architecture and design can be catalysts for beneficial change through enabling, accelerating and inspiring interaction across the entire built environment, to benefit both individuals and institutions. The global A&D community gathered to advance this theme through various WAF keynotes, speakers, and conversations to catalyze ideas and opportunities.
GROHE, a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings, has supported WAF since the inception of the festival in 2008. As WAF Founding Partner, GROHE represents the unique role water plays for the design discipline and helps shape innovative architectural visions and solutions around the element of water.
GROHE affirmed this commitment with the sponsorship and awarding of the GROHE Water Prize at WAF to UArchitects. The winning proposal calls for the scaling up of ‘micro-colonies’ comprised of floating platforms in Bangladesh. The connected platforms allow for the growing of food, with a community hub created to provide services (such as education and storage) to clusters of family homes. Clean water production is of great importance for these micro-colonies, which are intended to cope with extreme weather events, combat poverty and provide a new model of how communities can address the challenges of climate change. This is the fifth time the GROHE Water Prize has been awarded, with past winners across water filtration, generation and cooling systems in Peru, Brazil and Greece.
Satoshi Konagai, Leader, LIXIL Water Technology, Asia Pacific, expressed, “Through our GROHE power brand, we are proud to be the Founding Partner of the World Architecture Festival since its 2008 inception. Over the past sixteen years, we have worked together to grow WAF into a respected global platform that attracts thousands of delegates to celebrate excellence, network and explore business opportunities over the course of the festival. We are delighted to congratulate the WAF award winners, the GROHE Water Prize winner and WAF shortlist candidates. LIXIL will continue to engage the A&D community to uplift industry excellence and address challenges, including macrotrends across health and wellbeing, sustainability and urbanization.”
“This year’s festival is especially meaningful as we are concurrently launching GROHE SPA for the Asia Pacific region. First launched at this year’s Milan Design Week, we are excited to bring GROHE SPA’s specially curated collections that can create versatile combinations for a multi-sensory, personalized showering experience. We look forward to collaborating with discerning homeowners and industry partners on unique GROHE SPA projects across the region.” Mr. Konagai added.
Paul Finch, Programme Director, WAF, said, “Congratulations to all the WAF and INSIDE award winners and shortlist candidates. Their ideas and projects are a beacon for how design can be a multi-faceted catalyst for positive change. Our return to Asia is immensely gratifying to ignite fresh ideas and relationships in and around the A&D community. We greatly appreciate the support and encouragement from GROHE, our sponsors, partners, delegates and the global A&D community.”
Ahead of the WAF main event in Singapore, the GROHE and WAF teams worked closely to strengthen industry engagement through a series of special pre-WAF events and receptions held in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines that was enthusiastically received by the A&D community and media in each country.
For further information and press material, please see this link.
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About LIXIL
LIXIL (TSE Code 5938) makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere. Drawing on our Japanese heritage, we create world-leading technology and innovate to make high quality products that transform homes. But the LIXIL difference is how we do this; through meaningful design, an entrepreneurial spirit, a dedication to improving accessibility for all, and responsible business growth. Our approach comes to life through industry leading brands, including INAX, GROHE, American Standard, and TOSTEM. With approximately 55,000 colleagues operating in more than 150 countries, we are proud to make products that touch the lives of more than a billion people every day.
About GROHE
GROHE is a leading global brand for complete bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings. Since 2014 GROHE has been part of the strong brand portfolio of LIXIL, a manufacturer of pioneering water and housing products. In order to offer “Pure Freude an Wasser”, every product is based on the brand values of quality, technology, design and sustainability. Portfolio highlights such as the GROHE Eurosmart line or the GROHE thermostat series as well as groundbreaking innovations such as the GROHE Blue water system are the perfect embodiment of these values. Focused on customer needs, GROHE creates life-enhancing and sustainable product solutions that offer added value for consumers. To make everyday work easier for its professional partners, the brand also offers a comprehensive range of services, including the GROHE + loyalty program and GIVE – a training program for the next generation of installers.
With water at the core of its business, GROHE contributes to LIXIL’s corporate responsibility strategy with a resource-saving value chain: from CO2-neutral* production, water- and energy-saving product technologies, the removal of unnecessary plastic in the product packaging, all the way to the launch of Cradle to Cradle Certified® products. With the hybrid communication ecosystem GROHE X, the brand provides further impulses for the industry. Whether digitally on the brand experience hub, physically or hybrid in the GROHE X Brand & Communication Experience Center in Hemer, Germany or on the road with the GROHE X Motion Trucks, the brand connects people to enhance LIXIL’s purpose to “make better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere”.
*includes CO2 compensation projects, more on green.grohe.com
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