Cold storage, digital media, and design befitting a proper lavatory
Kohler/Robern
Humanfactors helped Kohler elevate the utilitarian medicine cabinet from a mirrored repository of excess toothbrushes and old shaving cream cans into a modern, purpose-driven product, providing users with cold storage, digital media, and aesthetics befitting a proper lavatory. Conventional medicine cabinets were specially engineered to provide refrigeration for the ever-increasing organic bath-and-body market for their luxury division Robern. Experimentation with the mirror surface itself allowed for an integrated LCD screen to provide users with the morning news. Task lighting was designed not only for usability and efficacy, but also to bathe the bathroom environment with style and elegance.
Electronic Integration
Travel conditions. The day’s weather. The state of the markets. Whatever information is needed to start your day off right is accessible directly from your medicine cabinet. While space was limited, we integrated electronics within the medicine cabinet to provide users with digital convenience. Add to that a specialized surface coating that mimics mirror, and the smart medicine cabinet was born.
Aesthetic Exploration
Technical work extended to novel hinge development, enabling a greater degree of rotation on mirror-length task lighting. In terms of pure aesthetics, we drew upon mother nature for design inspiration and explored warm textures and geologic patterns and applied them to minimal, modernist forms and features for dynamic juxtapositions.
