You might already know that I don’t believe in interior design trends as a major influence on the residential design projects that I undertake for private clients. Sometimes new needs arise as a result of changes in the world though, and lately that’s been a very big and very sudden need in response to Covid-19.
A huge change has been the way many of us have been made to use our homes for work and other activities that would normally have taken place away from our homes. This has placed new demands on our homes, and sometimes stresses for people when their homes weren’t ever designed to be used like that. I’ll be writing about this shortly, although a simpler and more practical change has of course been hygiene.
Many new activities have now become regular habits, and it’s now unusual if we aren’t offered hand sanitising wherever we go. That doesn’t mean it has to look overly functional or institutional though – now it can be stylish too. These elegant hand sanitising stations from Denmark’s Frost are simple and beautiful:
In fact they’re nice enough to be in your home, and in a wide range of finishes and heights they could be subtly incorporated into any interior design scheme:
For hand-washing instead, Dornbracht have a range of remotely-operated taps called ‘Touchfree’. These activate the taps based on proximity, and like all Dornbracht products they’re both meticulously designed and beautifully made. Available for many of their product ranges, this is the MEM range which we’ve used a couple of times in our interior design projects:
Where there’s a desire to limit contact with other surfaces and fittings, especially in public or commercial spaces, Philip Watts Design have come up with an ingenious and fun solution. Their ‘shoe pull’ enables no-hand-contact door opening:
And finally, one of the best solutions has been with us all along – copper. This metal has anti-bacterial properties and has long been used for water supply pipes, as well as in copper-rich alloys for ironmongery. Brass and bronze are two such alloys that were traditionally used for the door handles and fittings in hospitals. A renewed interest in these properties has shown that Covid-19 can’t survive on these surfaces for even an hour, and in some cases only a matter of minutes.
Brass is put to beautiful use by Armac Martin in this range of cabinetry handles. These would suit cabinetry designs in many kitchens and bathrooms, contributing to hygiene simply by being made of brass.
I can imagine this simple solution – discreet yet effective – becoming increasingly popular in design and hygiene-conscious interiors going forward.
