Cosentino Contemporary bathrooms

Contemporary bathrooms certainly do not have to be bland or boring.

In fact, this conventional view is exactly what Daniel Pérez, Felipe Araujo and Diana García from the Egue y Seta studio in Madrid, Spain, wanted to upend at Casa Decor 2023.

The trio wanted to show that these function-first spaces could not only be turned into multi-use spaces for the entire family but also pack a mighty design punch.

They had a clear idea: “to design a bathroom that would extend the typical and logical functionality of this space towards a more inclusive concept that allows for personal care in the broadest sense, including not only aesthetic grooming – dressing, make-up and hairstyling – but also shared and family use, as well as rest and relaxation.

For their design, Upper West Salamanca (The Bathroom Act), they partnered with Cosentino, choosing some of the company’s most vibrant Dekton and Silestone products for wall cladding and furniture applications to imbue the hard-working space with impressive decorative detail, showing that colour, pattern and design accents are not just for traditional social areas.

Their 30-square-metre design features two distinct spaces.

“‘In the foreground, right at the entrance, a small dressing room has been recreated, where a divan flanked by two wardrobes invites you to undress, choose your outfit for the day, read or rest, as the case may be. Opposite this space are the washbasins, symmetrically arranged on a pair of false walls that support the mirrors and, between them and to their sides, indicate the access routes to the third, most intimate and humid part of the room, formed by the shower, the bathtub and the toilet, from right to left,” explains the trio.

“With this layout, the colours and geometries that characterise the environments come to the fore,” explains Cosentino.

“A combination of large-size Silestone Cala Blue in a thickness of 12 mm was chosen for the walls of the dry living and dressing areas. This light colour is also used to line the washbasin drawers and extends to the cornices, doors and walls, which are finished in a soft-grained walnut with few knots, while the skirting boards are Mulemba green and the glass mosaic borders are misty yellow.”

“The floor, meanwhile, is decorated with a double carpet: the first, made of hard, waterproof and coloured mosaic tiles from the Petite collection by Hisbalit, defines the entire available space with its strips of small motifs and red accents; the second, in a softer, kilim-like pattern (Mosaico collection by Kilombo Home), frame the seating area with its colourful shapes and free geometry.”

While black brushed steel basins sit atop a brown 12mm Dekton Somnia countertop with rust-white veins.

Behind this a sudden colour change marks the end of one space and the start of another.

“Hisbalit’s Palm Springs collection clads the floor, as well as the step and the front and side skirts of the bathtub, with an alternating geometric pattern of red, white and green tones that runs along the walls to the height of a decorative skirting board. From here, the eye rests on a uniform grid of ivory-coloured rectangular glazed tiles from WOW Design’s Bejmat collection, until it meets a colourful ceramic border at mid-height, which again combines square pieces with floral reliefs in blue and tan shades with a volumetric Orac Decor fillet strip in lagoon blue. Bathco’s Antequera wall-mounted toilet and Athenas bath and shower taps, Aromas del Campo’s Ison tubular wall lights and Rei’s bathroom accessories provide contrasting accents in black,’ say the designers.

“As part of our inclusive, universal and versatile approach to luxury, and taking advantage of the opportunity offered by Casa Decor to collaborate with Bathco, Cosentino, WOW Design and Hisbalit, we wanted to pay tribute to and recover all the stylistic diversity, timeless dignity and everlasting beauty of the Tenement Tiles (the characteristic tiles that became “famous” at the beginning of the 20th century for decorating the common areas of the old working-class tenements in Manhattan) to clad and give a new standard to this bathroom, which we call Upper West Salamanca,” explains the studio.