Page 32 - HW May 2022

wet areas – bathroom & laundry
Englefield marks 40th birthday
This year Englefield celebrates its 40th birthday.
Roger Englefield began his working life as a plumber in Waimate, but his trademark entrepreneurial flair enabled him to start a number of very successful related ventures, specialising in plumbing and large injection moulded products.
Based in Auckland since 1982, shower manufacturing soon followed, along with baths, and innovative products such as the complete shower enclosure.
Roger and his son Derek continued to expand the business, exporting predominantly to Australia and Asia, and winning a plethora of awards along the way.
Approaching its 20th year, with Englefield still among the leaders in showering and bathing products, KOHLER purchased Englefield in 2001, bringing vitreous China products to their combined range and completing Englefield’s Total Bathroom Solution.
Here’s to another four decades!
https://englefield.co.nz/
Kohler’s new
freestanding baths
This month Kohler is launching its five-model Evok seamless freestanding bath range. Ergonomically designed for a deep and luxurious soaking experience, Evok slimline acrylic baths
are available in Rectangle (1.7m), Oval (1.5m, 1.6m & 1.7m) and Round (1.5m, as above), all fully reinforced and with a seamless gloss finish for easy cleaning and with an extra slim 25mm rim in keeping with the minimalist, elegant design.
www.kohler.co.nz
To mark its 40th year, Athena is launching two bold new vanity ranges complete with new formats, on-trend colours and soft, tactile finishes, as well as unique new shower bases, all dreamed up with the help of Auckland designer Sonya Cotter (see page 26 for more on this collaboration).
Asking Sonya to put Athena’s new designs into context, she says: “Bathrooms have moved from a utilitarian kind of space to something a little bit more up-market.”
After all, she says: “The bathroom is one of the few spaces in our homes where we can be alone. What with open plan and working from home it’s one of the few sanctuaries left in our homes.”
Which makes sense of bathroom vanities becoming more and more like furniture.
“That was the key direction with the Athena vanity designs,” says Sonya, “moving away from rectangles to something with a more interesting character, texture and a bit of movement, curves and so on.”
The curves referred to are a major feature of the new Swift vanity, part of a trend away from straight lines and hard surfaces, says Sonya Cotter.
New tactile finishes and gentler colours too have been arrived at with a view to softening the impact of walls of tiles and other hard surfaces in the bathroom.
Another aspect Sonya and Athena looked at was personalisation and customisation, “giving the homeowner a little bit of freedom,” she explains, referring to Athena’s Fleet
vanity with its configurable drawers and mix & match colours and finishes.
We look forward to hearing how these new products go in the marketplace!
30 NZHJ | MAY 2022
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz