Flow Control

An array of sensations can come over a person fumbling with the water knobs in the shower: a sudden chill, perhaps, or a burning blast. French architect Jean Nouvel reacted on a higher plane. "There's something archaic about turning knobs to make water run," he says. "The controls should be something you caress rather than manipulate." Thus Nouvel, who designed such innovative buildings as the Torre Agbar in Barcelona and the newly opened Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, had found another design challenge. Upscale home-furnishing stores are now rolling out his bathroom fixtures, which he designed to eliminate drips, washers and howls of discomfort from the modern home's most intimate space.

Nouvel says his faucet design was inspired by a water-worn stone, but it looks more like a Zen master's TV remote control fixed to the lip of a basin. It has one button to turn on or increase the water's flow, one to turn it off or down, and one each to make it hotter or colder. Behind the minimalist exterior is a programmable sensor that allows the user to get precisely the temperature desired with a single push—er, caress—of a button.

Nouvel can pick his tasks, so why bathrooms? "It turned out I have something to say about taps," says Nouvel, 61. "We have technology now that lets us minimize our gestures; we can move forward into a kind of Darwinism of objects." Well, some of us can. Nouvel's designs, which include a shower system, faucets for bath and basin, a matte white bathroom sink and accessories from towel bars to soap dishes, aren't destined for just any member of the great unwashed: the faucet alone retails for $2,090. www.jado.com