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2009 / ROCA /

Initial Challenge

In the face of rapid demographic, social, and technological shifts, Roca’s Innovation Lab sought to explore what the bathroom of the future might look like. The goal was to understand how changing lifestyles and values would impact expectations for hygiene, wellness, privacy, and space use—both in public and private environments.

The Method

We applied a foresight and speculative design approach through international collaboration between Roca and CIID (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design). The process included:

  • Mapping global lifestyle and demographic trends (e.g. aging population, urbanization, wellness culture)

  • Studying emerging technologies in smart homes, sustainable materials, and digital hygiene

  • Observing behaviors and routines around bathroom usage in different cultural and domestic contexts

  • Hosting co-creation workshops to imagine near-future and visionary concepts

  • Defining key thematic axes: health, intimacy, sustainability, and personalization

  • Creating personas of future users to ground speculative scenarios in human behavior

The Solution

The outcome was a visionary framework and concept catalogue outlining potential future directions for bathroom spaces:

  • Shifts from hygiene to wellbeing: Bathrooms as spaces for rest, recovery, and self-care

  • New forms of intimacy: Adapting bathroom design for shared spaces, caregiving, or tech-enhanced privacy

  • Flexible, modular environments: Responding to urban constraints and multi-use living arrangements

  • Smart materials and connected systems: Sensing, adapting, and learning user routines

This work served as inspiration and strategic input for future product lines and collaborations with industrial designers.

My Involvement

I was responsible for:

  • Conducting trend and user research

  • Mapping cultural and behavioral insights from various international markets

  • Defining speculative user needs and experience narratives

  • Co-leading creative ideation workshops with Roca’s internal and external teams

  • Developing future personas and visualizing key concept directions

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