Zaha Hadid Architects have completed a showroom in London for Spanish bathroom brand Roca.
Undulating white walls surround a reception and lounge area that snakes through the interior of the Roca London Gallery, which is located on the ground floor of a mixed-use building near Chelsea Harbour.
Shiny plastic benches and desks furnish the space, while bulbous light fittings of the same material are suspended overhead.
Arched openings lead from the reception into concrete caves, where products are displayed on integrated shelves and lights sit within recessed grooves.
These rooms are formed from a jigsaw of glass-reinforced concrete elements that slot against one another with visible seams.
Around one corner is a glazed meeting room, whilst elsewhere are a series of interactive touchscreens.
Roca intend to use the showroom as a venue for exhibitions, seminars, meetings and other events.
Some other buildings with cave-like interiors were recently highlighted on Dezeen in a special feature - see these projects here.
Other London projects by Zaha Hadid include the aquatics centre for the London 2012 Olympics and the Stirling Prize winning Evelyn Grace Academy - see these projects and more by Zaha Hadid here.
Photography is by Luke Hayes.
Here's some more text from Zaha Hadid Architects:
Zaha Hadid, two times winner of the Stirling Prize, celebrates the launch of her third London project, the Roca London Gallery
The Roca London Gallery consists of a single floor measuring 1,100m2, where, as the Zaha Hadid studio intended, it appears that water has sculptured and defined each and every detail of the space.
Roca‟s commitment to design and innovation is clearly visible in the exterior of the building with its distinctive and unique façade which gives the Roca London Gallery its identity. Three almost organic portals which appear to have been shaped by water erosion open up this space to the city.
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The movement of water is the overriding theme in the Roca London Gallery – flowing and merging exterior and interior spaces. The interior is sculptured white concrete and its state of the art lighting connects each of the different areas whilst serving as a central axis around which the Roca London Gallery revolves.
The interior is fabulous, functional and flexible, featuring cutting-edge, modern, audiovisual, sound and lighting equipment. This technology provides interaction with the brand and the opportunity to discover the company‟s history, its landmark achievements and the values on which all of Roca‟s work is based: the commitment to sustainability and particularly to innovation, design, wellness and saving water.
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The Roca London Gallery is intended to be much more than just a display space. Available to an extensive audience that will include everyone from design-savvy architects to design-hungry students, it will become a London hub hosting a wide range of activities such as exhibitions produced in-house or externally, meetings, presentations, seminars and debates, the criteria being a celebration of design in keeping with the Roca brand and company values.
Dreams do come true!
disorientating, synthetic and careless… apart from that cool yeah!!
go live in a box and everything that is rigid … the real world is organic and humans came from the forest.. don't forget that.
many of you just downplay what Zaha and the likes because all you're capable of are making boxes xDD
yes the real world is organic in terms of evolution.. "humans came from the forest" and i'm assuming caves etc. this is precisely my point. forests and caves to synthetic, fake and somewhat form driven environments.
Its not that I don't like organic design I love it, but in contrast and in chosen amounts i.e furniture, cutlery, etc. .. this is just pure over kill!!
In terms of your "all you're capable of are making boxes" is utter rubbish, come on… one only needs to know the basics of 3d studio max or rhino and a couple of the modifiers such as turbo smooth to achieve "organic" form creation!!! However, funding those designs in the real world is a different story for a different day.
good luck +
you are a jok!!…do you really think one can just do all these lines or organic forms using certain softweres?????????? is that so one really needs to know few softweres!!??? ask yourself again. and try and do a chair then you will know
If you want to see how easy it is to make something like this go to any graduation show, you'll find many carbon copies of Zaha. But thats beside the point, you should judge the architecture itself – not how easy or hard it is to make.
'carbon copies of Zaha'
exactly the point her advocates are trying to make – whenever a Hadid project is features anywhere it elicits admiration, indifference, distaste and more often than not a tirade of opinion so predictable they are patently borne of sour-grapes.
no no, your right, i know its not easy, but the software makes it possible matey..
all the best +
OMG. Totally! I'm kinda REALLY tired of seeing "fluid, organic forms" now.
Depressing ! Feel bad for the woman in the pic. working alone in a blob
@rjc totally agree.
those lines are great it just reminds me of my tutor Hanaa Moosa Eissa sketches
see also: retail store in Bari, Italy
stop her, please! lets do her just interior design. world is better without her buildings!
Why is it anymore acceptable in Interiors than Architecture?
I presume you are an architect with such an opinion…
Because architecture is about more than aesthetics. environmental, structural, microclimatic concerns in hadid's design take second place to creating a uniform aesthetic. these concerns are not as vital for interiors.
Only an architect would have such an inflated opinion.
That is absolute nonsense that interiors are only about aesthetics. I think you may be confusing interior decorating with interior design.
You can have a fantastic piece of architecture ruined entirely by an ill-considered interior DESIGN.
Innovative, unique, beautiful, contemporary and sensuous !
cool building, but what does it have to do with Roca? Sure most of the people would come to see the building rather then several Roca items.
Phenomenal! Zaha rules!
I forgot it was a bathroom showroom half way through and started wondering why there were no cubicles around the toilets…
Exactly… surely a show room requires context. This would make an impressive car showroom but not for household hardware, equipment and appliances.
bagsy not me measuring it up for business rates.
she investigates new approaches to organise forms of space… there is only one thing she is lucky, she may do it real, not mock-ups! generally – congratulations!
So over-the-top curvy and shiny it makes the bathroom fittings, that are supposed to be showed off, look angular and old-fashioned. I'm not sure that's really what they want, is it?
Weird project indeed.
Yours is the only reasonable and constructive criticism so far. Indeed, the main purpose of a showroom is to make the objects in the collection to stand out.
With this project Zaha is trying to steal the show in the showroom.
I just realized the weakness in her design…she hasn’t altered the floor in any way. While I’ve never seen straight walls in caves I’ve also never seen flat floors.
Won’t it be cool/successful when she brings her “organic/sensuous” touch to the entire space?
(Of course the logical response is,”You can’t do that.” , but if you could that would be amazing.)
i forgot why i was looking at the pics in the first place.. just weird i think… reminds me of the bubbles in a lava lamp..or biology
I love Zaha Hadid but I'm not impressed with this space. It doesn't fit the context of the objective at hand. And I too feel sorry for the lady who has to work at that desk.
This is what an undergrad student might have designed.
They are going to have to sell ALOT of toilets to pay for this…
Phenomenal Lines …. So organic …. nature create and transform the building…. @dezeen
What is the point of designing a showroom that is so ridiculously overwhelming that the products fade into utter insignificance?
I know a lot of people bag Zaha but this kind of design, that misses the mark entirely, is a good example of why people dislike her so.
Eu sinto um frenesi inexplicável quando vejo tanto talento e senso estético dessa mulher iraquiana. A Zaha é a absurdamente expressiva e genial. Os que julgam e depreciam o que ela faz´são como os que olham mas não enxergam nada.
it was a momentous moment when we invented the brick and could leave the cave behind us. Why in the world would any one reverse this? Caves are depressing.
i really like the chairs
It reminds me of sperm and probably the interior of tubes or others.
I am really happy that zaha is doing this wonderfull things. It’s ok. It’s just a roca store anyway.
amaizing! massive creativity, huge thinking forward.
I love it, thanks zaha, thanks roca
Its nice and all but arent we over blobs yet? its all a bit geiger meets 70's space opera
Great concept of erosion – Zaha at her best!
People always said "Go with the flow"…Zaha Hadid…you create the flow…awesome.
poor combination of vertical elements and fluidity …. love ur work zaha but this is not digestable
The design is so good no doubted about that. I just wondered how to make services and maintenance for such amazing bath in the future.
One could do as good a job by mimicking a digestive tract photo shoot.
This entire biofantasy stands more for our associations with clouds, tumors, fluids than with the real inventive capacity of the– so-called– architect. No wonder 300 people on staff are required to document this stuff.
Let's move on from the blobs……Enough already.
i like exterior elevations more than interior,
but when Zaha will change her language of design?
this language is very beautiful but i think this is with no function
I think it's pretty hideous. Almost too futuristic
I love Zaha’s ideas, totally expressive and you can never guess what she will create next.
It’s quite reminiscent of Salvador Dali in a way, which I love.
Personally I’m a fan of chic linear spaces, but this is totally refreshing and fun, so no need to take it so seriously.
I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get this type of design right, i’m sure drawing it out is one challenge, but getting the skilled craftsman to build it to order is another !
it looks like a museum of toilets…. not a show room… but anyway it’s zaha and she always surpirze us with her strange ideas…
Shapes of freedom, and interconnectivity. The colour tels you its a toilet show room. The toilets can be anything, it will sell in the showroom.
All those lines and curves….it's magic!
I go to design school right by this. It dosent't stand out as a Hadid piece, in fact it's very tame and fitting.