House of Geberit

The listed Swiss company Geberit is European market leader for sanitary products. What began with the manufacture of the first wooden cistern in 1900 has developed into a product portfolio that today includes sanitary installations of all kinds, both in front of and behind the wall. Geberit now wishes to address additional target groups, and is using its design lines of bathroom ceramics, storage furniture and mirror cabinets to target architects, interior architects and designers, and of course end customers. This far-reaching expansion of the company’s profile is accompanied by a new trade fair and showroom concept, which Ippolito Fleitz Group was commissioned to develop in the autumn of 2019. Initially, the brief was all about designing a concept for trade fairs as we once knew them. The Milan Furniture Fair, ISH, BAU – all were taken into consideration, and then the corona pandemic struck. Despite this challenging setback, our trade fair concept was finally realised in early 2021. In the form of a hybrid concept, however, which can also be used as a set for product image films, live digital broadcasts and even as a training space: welcome to the House of Geberit.

A sturdy basic principle – straight from Geberit’s DNA
The remit and challenge for the exhibition stand concept was to develop a recognisable, memorable idea that works equally well for small-scale product presentations, as for stands boasting several hundred square metres at key trade fairs. It must appeal to the target group for the new design lines, as well as to Geberit’s classic clientele of plumbers and facility managers. And it must do so at up to 100 trade fairs per annum worldwide. The underlying idea is literally taken straight from Geberit’s DNA: the Geberit Installation System (GIS) is a metal framework construction that accommodates sanitary installations in everyday practice and is concealed in-wall. This backbone of the plumbing trade becomes the basic modular framework for the House of Geberit. Resembling an open installation wall, it is already an identification and projection surface for Geberit’s existing customer base. We went on to develop various inserts for this basic construction. Geberit groups its sanitary technology products under the label ‘Know-How Installed’. These are presented in recessed, concrete or stone-look installation boxes, and provide vital insights into the highly intelligent systems concealed in-wall. Geberit uses the designator ‘Design Meets Function’ to describe its products that are used ‘in front of the wall’. Here we employed material collages to present this separate product world. Panels with colourful, tactile materials are hung before the metal framework, creating associations for a range of spatial situations and specification levels. Thus each product collection mounted in such a way receives its own abstract setting.

Modular, sustainable and intelligent
The basic canon of the stand is enriched by additional elements. Open scaffolding teems with green plants, illustrating that topics such as health, well-being and biophilia play an increasingly important role in the bathroom. In the technical world, a workbench invites visitors to try things out for themselves, while the design world inspires visitors with mood boards and styling inspiration. The overall image of the stand remains consistently transparent at all times. The product worlds in front of and behind the wall are melded together, rendering the intelligence of Geberit’s products impressively clear for all to see. The stand concept is intrinsically scalable and the modular system can be implemented in a wide variety of floor plans. We respond to different room heights and the need for double-storey exhibition stands with vertical textile lamellae in three different lengths, which further serve to give the stand its striking external appearance. Depending on the trade fair’s thematic focus, the two product worlds can be weighted differently in the stand set-up. The scalability of the modules is complemented by their reusability: the new trade fair concept is sustainable and intelligent, just like Geberit’s products.

Putting on a show – even without trade fairs
The need to present new Geberit products to the market and in-house remains as great as ever. Together we searched for an alternative to the conventional exhibition stand. Both sides were quickly on board with the idea of trying something similar to the Apple keynote on the smart home. We used our stand concept to do this, and constructed the House of Geberit in a warehouse at the company’s German site in Pfullendorf. We used the scenic set-ups of the product presentations as filmsets in which Geberit experts present the products. In February 2021, event agency White Label began a two-month filming period, creating original digital content – 240 minutes of video content, translated into 34 languages and streamed live – for the Geberit Innovation Days. The new corporate architecture forms the backdrop and actively employed prop for Geberit’s 2021 digital trade fair alternative. In place of the ultimately ephemeral architecture of an exhibition stand, a permanent presentation and communication platform has been created. And what is more, our studio stand is reusable in a dual sense: After filming is wrapped up, it will take a brief rest, before being used for in-house events and product training in the autumn. The sky is the limit really, because the modular system can easily be adapted for different thematic presentations, and is ready and waiting to put on the next big show.