Big Bathroom Brands: What’s Happening Right Now

TL;DR: The bathroom industry is moving fast right now. Spanish heritage brands rubbing shoulders with architects in Barcelona. German engineering rethinking how water hits your skin. Kohler talking design culture in a thousand-year-old Chinese city. American Standard solving shower-temperature nightmares. INAX stacking up design awards. And AXOR dressing up a five-star Mexican resort. Here’s what the big players are up to.

Roca at the World Congress of Architects

Roca — the Barcelona-born brand that’s been around for over a century — just wrapped up a major presence at the UIA World Congress of Architects in Barcelona. Over 10,000 architects from 130+ countries, all gathered under the theme “Becoming”. Roca showed up as the main partner, with exhibits at both the CCIB convention center and the Les Tres Xemeneies venue.

What they showed: modular bathroom construction — prefab units that slot into buildings like puzzle pieces. Faster builds, less waste, smarter water tech. Roca has been positioning bathrooms as “sanctuaries of well-being” rather than purely functional spaces.

CCIB – the main venue of the UIA World Congress of Architects in Barcelona, where Roca exhibited as lead partner.

Kohler in a 1,000-Year-Old Chinese City

On June 25, Kohler teamed up with IDEAT magazine for a cultural forum in Datong, an ancient Chinese city with a history stretching back over a millennium. The forum, held in the historic Dongnanyi district, brought together designers Xie Ke, Meng Ye, and Chen Xuan to discuss how design can reshape cultural tourism experiences.

Kohler has been embedding itself in design conversations — showing up where architects and designers are thinking out loud, building credibility with the people who specify products.

The Kohler × IDEAT cultural forum held at Nianxia·Li in Datong’s historic Dongnanyi district.

Grohe’s New Shower Tech: More Punch, Less Water

Grohe recently released the “AquaBooster” — more water pressure, less water used.

The system splits water flow into dual chambers inside the shower head, creating a rhythmic, pulsating stream that feels more powerful than the water volume actually is. Up to 3 liters less per minute compared to standard showers. At 1 bar of pressure, it flows at 4.5 to 6 liters per minute — under the standard 7.5-liter limit.

GROHE Euphoria 120 hand shower with Aqua Booster technology | Image Credit: GROHE

American Standard Fixes a Common Annoyance

Sudden temperature swings during a shower — American Standard’s new “ShelfPRO” thermostatic shower system aims to solve that. An imported thermostatic valve core keeps water temperature locked in, regardless of what’s happening elsewhere in the house.

Built-in 400×147mm shelf — no more balancing bottles on tub edges or using wire caddies. The system also packs a 234mm overhead rain shower, a 120mm handheld wand, and a hidden lower outlet. One-touch on/off, twist to adjust flow.

INAX Keeps Racking Up Awards

Japan’s INAX just scored its third win at the Successful Design Awards — this time for the SARAS wall-hung smart toilet. Previous wins: S400 thermostatic shower and SARAS smart toilet. Brand philosophy: “Flow of the heart, purity of life.”

AXOR at a Mexican Resort

AXOR — Hansgrohe’s luxury arm — equipped the newly renovated Maroma hotel on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Designer Tara Bernerd chose the Montreux series throughout the villa bathrooms: floor-mounted two-handle tub fillers, three-hole deck-mounted basin faucets, and 240mm overhead showers with handheld wands.

Copyright: Courtesy of Belmond