inus, the total living brand of IS Dongseo (CEO Kwon Min-seok), a comprehensive construction and building-materials company, took part in ‘ARCHITECT@WORK Milan’ held in Milan, Italy, where it showcased its European-style integrated bidet toilet ‘HYGEA.’
Held over two days from November 13 to 14 last year, ARCHITECT@WORK is an architecture and design exhibition that began in Belgium in 2005 and is now staged each year in various countries around the world. Practical and innovative industrial design products are exhibited, and architects, designers, and engineers attend the event.
Entry is highly selective—to display a product at the exhibition, it must pass a review by a panel of judges made up of architects and designers. The main visitors are architects and designers who design luxury hotels and villas, and they come to the exhibition expecting innovative high-end products. This year’s edition in Milan, Italy, the sixth so far, drew around 200 exhibitor representatives and close to 4,000 visitors.
The HYGEA exhibited on this occasion is a wall-hung integrated bidet toilet tailored to the European market. The product name, which means ‘hygiene’ in Greek, is derived from the name of the goddess of health in Greek mythology. Beyond its name, the product’s design also reflects European tastes. Its slim and compact design improves space efficiency, while a variety of colors and textures add aesthetic appeal.
HYGEA’s greatest strength is its limescale removal function. Because tap water in Europe contains limescale, using electronic bidets there has not been easy. inus applied an ‘Anti-lime’ function that removes limescale to HYGEA, so that consumers can use the bidet in a healthy way without worrying about limescale. With the Anti-lime function, limescale can be removed periodically according to water-quality test results, without the need to install a separate filter.
After-sales care is also convenient. The seat, toilet, and bidet sections can each be separated and reassembled individually, so if any part requires service, only that part can be sent in for repair.
Recognized for its European-style design, excellent functions suited to local conditions, and after-sales convenience, inus HYGEA won the gold prize in the Interior & Bathroom category of the ‘2019 European Product Design Award,’ which selects innovative products that combine both aesthetics and practicality. In addition, at the ‘2019 Good Design (GD) Product Selection,’ Korea’s most prestigious design award, it received the Korea Institute of Design Promotion President’s Award and was granted the Good Design mark.