That’s Life Anew
WASHLET® and me
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Brand & Interesting Facts
|06/11/2024
Around 100 creative minds shape TOTO’s design. For the first time, the design team in Japan has provided insights into their internal design process with the new NEOREST WX. About the level of perfection, the relationship between design and technology, and how significant “design reviews” and “interdisciplinary teams” are at TOTO.
Durability and continuity are two factors that impact TOTO designers’ everyday work. Many of the 100 employees in the Design department have worked in this role for their entire professional lives, which is very typical for the labour market in Japan. They do switch product categories, though – from faucets to toilets or shower systems, for example. Each year, they work on up to 140 different design projects of various scopes for the international market. Developing more intricate products can take up to four years.
The new NEOREST WX, for example, took two years to develop. It’s the high point of this collection’s design evolution, which started with the first NEOREST toilet in 1993. NEOREST was and continues to be TOTO’s premium brand. Over the years, the NEOREST toilets with integrated WASHLET in particular have become veritable design highlights. TOTO introduced the latest NEOREST model at ISH 2023: a wall-mounted version that hides the toilet’s many features and functionalities from view.
As Director of the Design Department at TOTO Ltd in Tokyo, the birthplace of all company designs distributed around the world, it’s important to Yoku Hirotsu to make one thing clear: “The most important thing is to think about the people who use our products. It’s never about the design itself. The design is important because it should enhance people’s lives and their personal comfort each and every day.”
This perspective is what inspired the “calming presence” philosophy in the Design department. Nearly every TOTO product follows this philosophy. To realise this, all designers have to meet three principles without compromise:
These products all involve a certain level of intimacy in their use, which poses another special challenge: Each of them comes into contact with exposed skin. This is why it’s especially important to feel comfortable while using them. For example, curved, flowing lines promote people’s well-being and sense of safety.
According to the Japanese understanding of design, there’s no such thing as a perfect design. User needs change and technologies are constantly evolving. Designers are always required to align these two very different aspects. For example, we have access to technologies that measure health and user data. If we use these, toilets could better support people’s lives in an aging society. Such technologies could help us reduce waiting times at public toilets or transform the ways in which we monitor our own health at home. TOTO prioritises collaboration between their internal Design and Engineering teams to promote the development of these kinds of innovations.
“It’s important that Design and Engineering experts be in constant communication. They should discuss and explore how people will live in future. Blending technology and design is what we strive to do at TOTO,” explains Yuji Yoshioka, the TOTO Design Director responsible for NEOREST WX. Teams from Marketing, Digital Technologies, Design Modelling, Computer Graphics and Prototype Modelling work together depending on the phase within the design process. The results of the individual teams are evaluated and validated (in development sessions) in a process called design review. Interdisciplinary teams consisting of engineers, designers and marketing experts also collaborate on innovative projects that require the development of new technologies.
User experiences are essential for TOTO when devising comfort and hygiene technologies and integrating them into the product. According to Yuko Hirotsu, it’s essential to find the right shape and materials during the design process. Both factors impact the user’s impression – and finding the ideal solution is a top priority at TOTO. The goal is to further intensify people’s sense of comfort, hygiene and peace of mind, creating an experience that leaves them fully and completely satisfied. The seamless, streamlined design typical of the TOTO brand is an example that embodies these product experiences. It’s found in many washbasins, faucets and bathtubs sold by the company.
WASHLET® is more challenging to design and produce in this seamless, minimalist design due to the use of both ceramic and plastic materials. Despite this challenge, the designers were able to achieve this look for the new NEOREST WX collection: seamless, organic, flowing. It wasn’t easy to piece the different ceramic and plastic materials together in a seamless way. It required the unique expertise and many years of experience with WASHLET®.
In this sense, Yuji Yoshioka also mentions how important the aspect of “editing” is in the NEOREST WX design. Designers used the latest sensor-based technology for raising and lowering the lid – making it no longer necessary to incorporate any type of window in the lid for the sensor. TOTO created the WX model – with its near-perfect design, exhaustive development process and exclusive materials – especially for the luxury segment.
The new composition of the ceramic is another highlight: Developed and produced by TOTO, the base material contains a composite that essentially keeps the shape and the dimensions of the product from changing during the firing process. Yuko Hirotsu and Yuji Yoshioka believe that it would have been impossible to create NEOREST WX without this innovative technology. “The challenge posed by new materials and processing methods has produced a unique, integral design that is also beautifully smooth and seamless,” explains Yuji Yoshioka.
TOTO’s design hasn’t always followed this integral approach. The year 2015 marked a turning point in terms of the company’s design. TOTO conducted intensive research, evaluated customer interviews and sent trend scouts abroad to find inspiration at major industry events like Milan’s Salone del Mobile, for example. Contrary to their expectations, the results revealed a new direction.
“The global market and especially the European market, with their long-established competitors, suggested a change in priorities: It was time to develop gentler, softer shapes; a sensitive and approachable design more in line with global interior design trends,” summarises Design Director Yuko Hirotsu. “At this time, we started incorporating more emotional concepts and took a fresh look at our entire collection. In 2015, we took a fundamentally different approach to open up to the global market. We defined additional processes in which designers, engineers, the Sales departments in various countries and management share ideas – implementing procedures in which everyone could evaluate draft designs and communicate directly.”
An important Japanese approach always stands out: The focus is always on the other person, not oneself. This mindset flows into the development and design. “We have an unspoken understanding to explore ways in which we can better appeal to other people’s feelings with our design,” explains Yuko Hirotsu. She is aware that some Europeans find the automatic toilet lid to be a funny gimmick. In Japan, however, this automated feature is seen as a form of respect to the user. Anything that could potentially negatively impact the user should be avoided – like touching someone else’s toilet seat lid with their hand, for example. This typically Japanese understanding and attitude towards life – the keen sense for other people’s well-being – informs the development of all TOTO products. It resonates throughout TOTO collections, inspiring people all over the world.
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