HOW TO MAKE AN ACCESSIBLE BATHROOM LOOK BEAUTIFUL
Upmarket hotels aim to enhance the traveller's experience. While many successfully convey a pampered atmosphere in the living decor, they fail when it comes to the accessibility bathrooms, offering instead visually unattractive and hospital-like spaces.
This is a potential major missed opportunity, when high quality fixtures with both aesthetic appeal and certified disability compliance are available, and would result in bathrooms indistinguishable from able-bodied ones.
In fact, there is a distinct advantage in fitting all a hotel's bathrooms with accessible (Universal Design) fixtures. It provides ultimate flexibility in booking maximum room numbers, offers clients the luxury appeal of support in the wet areas should they unexpectedly need it, and ensures overall positive customer response.
The additional cost providing fine accessible design is more than outweighed by the financial and practical advantages it provides hotel management and the greatly enhanced guest experience that can be offered in every bathroom.
Life is about experiences and the goal should be equally positive for able bodied people and disabled people.
For All Rooms
For Accessible Rooms
Eliminates the need to discount accessible rooms when able bodied guest complains of hospital like fit out
At Some stage in our life we have stayed in a hotel....
In New Zealand Hotels are required to meet the NZ Building Code 4121 which is quite prescriptive in the layout of the bathroom space. But hardware must only fit within a set of parameters.
However it does not say the bathroom should be fitted out with hospital fittings. Unfortunately 99% currently are. We have see 5* Hotels that have stunning & expensive wall treatments – i.e. marble sheet, Italian tiles etc – yet the accessible bathroom has a $50.00 support rail straight out of a hospital or public bathroom.
There are a few problems with this approach.
By using elegantly designed fixtures and a splash of colour Universal & Accessible Bathrooms are available for all.
WHAT DO THESE LEADING HOTELS HAVE IN COMMON?
THEY ALL SPECIFIED HEWI!
Please note the images are of European bathrooms. We supply NZS4121 compilant products
Please note the images are of European bathrooms. We supply NZS4121 compilant products.
Established in 1951 as manufacturer representatives, this third-generation family-owned company has a continuing policy of representing specialist manufacturers of quality products for the plumbing and marine industries. SA Plumbing Supply's parent company - Shipwright Agencies Ltd - experienced the marine sector weakening toward the end of the 1990s and thus diversified into the plumbing sector, specialising in niche products that were a point of difference from the norm.
In early 2014, Shipwright Agencies Ltd created a new brand - SA Plumbing Supply Ltd - to convey a name that had greater relevance to the plumbing industry. We are a small boutique company where you receive personalised service that goes the extra mile to get the best products without paying for an arm and a leg.
Quadro (Italy) was the first brand onboard during the Shipwright Agencies era in early 2000, specialising in stainless steel tapware with highly architectural origins and is Green to boot.
Over the years, SA Plumbing Supply has sourced quality European brands to introduce to the New Zealand market. Director Sean Paterson regularly travels to European Trade Shows, such as Salone del Mobile in Milan and ISH in Frankfurt, to ensure SA Plumbing Supply is at the forefront of leading product procurement.
In 2015, SA Plumbing Supply began marketing Goman (Italy) as a specialist supplier of accessible bathroom products that changed the perception of the disability market (accessible doesn't need to be ugly). Subsequently 2017, Hewi (Germany) increased the market share of highly architectural accessible products by introducing the System 900 range, which has set the standard for Hotels and luxury homes.
2018 saw the introduction of the Cinier range of Olycal Stone Radiators and LED Lighting. Cinier's Olycal Stone Radiators serve a functional purpose and double as art and lighting.
Following the ISH Trade Show of 2019, SA Plumbing Supply became the NZ distributor for EverLife Design (Italy) and Pellet (France). EverLife Design, in particular, has been well-received for its original concepts and simple lines.
In the winter of 2019, the Universal & Accessible Bathroom Design brand was created to address the bigger picture of Universal Design in the home. This showcases the best of all brands and looks for any budget.