Interview with Peter Wirz

Peter Wirz: Well, you need to understand a little German to grasp this: "Laufen" can actually mean "running" or "racing" in that language. So you could certainly say that there's a parallel between my past activities – and my previous passion – as a runner and the part I play in helping the LAUFEN company to run in the race for perfection. An athletic career in elite sport is an important and valuable school of life that teaches you to take an equally positive attitude to success and defeat. And another parallel is the focus on a specific goal – on a particular major event such as the Olympic Games in my past life, or on a key presentation nowadays.

Peter Wirz: In actual fact, we do have a design team that focuses almost entirely on LAUFEN projects. Incidentally, that's the great advantage of a close working relationship that continues for many years. Consistency, quality and efficiency are the hallmarks of our partnership. Nevertheless, each of our designers – including me – works on other subjects and in other fields to make sure that our creative skills don't become blunted.

Peter Wirz: Our working relationship is now based primarily on trust, appreciation and relevance. Over the years, this has led to a sort of community of interests that goes far beyond the design service as such. New ideas emerge from both sides, to an equal extent – both from us and from LAUFEN, and from different markets. As the years have gone on, we have created a shared mindset – and a bond. But at the end of the day, the main goal of our collaboration as an extended workbench is to ensure business success in the long term.

Alain Reymond: The designer has as much freedom as the materials, the applicable standards and the designer's briefing allow. Ceramic, for instance, has certain properties that the designer must take into account in his or her work. That's why constant dialogue with our in-house development department is so enormously important. The design models are constructed by our experts in CAD – taking account of the applicable standards – and the options for production are analysed. Ideas are often shuttled back and forth between the development and production departments and the designer before the models are ready for production. Peter Wirz is already thoroughly familiar with the special features of the materials and the game of ping-pong that goes on with the development team. That makes it far easier to work together.

Mr. Wirz, how has your collaboration with LAUFEN evolved during all these years, and how has it changed?

Peter Wirz: When we started working together, there was still only one written briefing to develop the design for a new product. Nowadays, we talk intensively and there's a lot of discussion at different levels. We rub up against one another, and we challenge each other. We question, reject and consider until the final decision is reached on what should be made, and how it is to be done. Today, we have a thorough knowledge of LAUFEN's strategic orientation, markets, competitors and many other aspects. Because of that, we have grown together over the years like a big family.

Mr. Reymond, from LAUFEN's perspective – why do Peter Wirz's products achieve such lasting success?

Alain Reymond: Peter Wirz has always succeeded in developing ranges for LAUFEN that are acceptable to the majority; they are highly serviceable and they feature an attractively independent, beautiful design; he has come up with solutions that are ideally matched to the production process and the materials, so they can be manufactured in large quantities. Peter Wirz himself calls this "democratic design", or design for everyone.

Mr. Wirz, do you have equally long-lasting relationships with other clients, or is this the exception?

Peter Wirz: A customer relationship that lasts as long as the one with LAUFEN is a nice exception to the rule. However, longstanding partnerships and mandates are very important for us so we can establish the issues of design and brand as sources of genuine entrepreneurial added value and factors in long-term economic success, by working in close liaison with our customers' companies. At present, we are providing support for companies such as ABB, Roche, Ypsomed and Stiebel Eltron as they continue their journeys to success.

Alain Reymond: For the most part, the LAUFEN bathroom is universal. Nevertheless, certain countries have special requirements for technology or bathroom design. However, we try to integrate country-specific products such as one-piece siphon WCs for America or the Asian region harmoniously into our international series, as far as possible. But it can also happen that we produce a series specifically intended for one country. Take the Nordic market, for example, where the understanding of bathroom design is quite different. For historical reasons, the Moderna collection by Peter Wirz is almost exclusively sold in Switzerland, and that's also why it's produced at the LAUFEN site. One of Peter Wirz's latest projects gave him the opportunity to plunge into the Asian market. He created a new shower-WC for this special market: it meets the requirements of the country concerned and at the same time, it integrates LAUFEN's values such as the highest standards of quality, design, function, innovation and precision.

As an industrial designer, you operate in various fields. What particular challenge does the design of bathroom products present?

Peter Wirz: The bathroom as a space, and the daily rituals of its users, have changed dramatically in the last few years. We take a proactive approach to the changes and challenges in close collaboration with LAUFEN as well as other companies in the sanitary industry such as Duscholux. We always seek to achieve utility value and relevance in our work. The durability and serviceability of the design are always critical factors too, because bathrooms are only renewed once every twenty or thirty years on average.

Do you have a specific design language for LAUFEN products? Or is the language constantly being redeveloped?

Peter Wirz: In our work as designers, our primary focus is on people – on what they want and how they feel. Then there are the influences of the worlds where they live and, most importantly, how we deal with water as an element in the room. All these influences shape our thoughts and ideas as we move towards the product itself and the physical form that it will assume.

Mr. Reymond, how much change do you see in the requirements, wishes and needs that bathroom products have to meet, or are expected to fulfill? And how are these changes impacting the design and production processes at LAUFEN?

Alain Reymond: In my view, two major and decisive trends are exerting a critical influence on bathroom products at present. On the one hand, there is the desire for sustainability – and on the other, there is digitalization. The world is going digital – and that applies to bathrooms, too! Both these trends are making the production process more complex, and they are also setting new requirements for design. New technologies, the IoT, innovations, new partners, new processes, the circular economy: all of these aspects have to be taken into consideration nowadays. LAUFEN has recognised them, and it focuses on the two key issues that are important for the future.

Peter Wirz: As a designer of LAUFEN products, working for LAUFEN, and operating in such a competitive sector, we shall have to act with more agility, courage and foresight in the future. Just as in the past, the path we travel together will not follow a straight line in the future either – in fact, it will be influenced even more strongly by iterative cycles. But speaking personally, what puts me in a positive frame of mind about the future is our shared mindset – our goal of focusing even more on sustainability and durability as time goes on.