Redesigning a classic is not a task that anyone ought to take lightly. GROHE’s Vice President of Design Michael Seum, however, was delighted to step up to the challenge. Charged with rethinking the classic GROHE Atrio water tap was, he tells us, an exciting opportunity. Building upon the strengths of this GROHE stalwart, Seum aimed to instil it with a sense of timelessness. We caught up with Michael to talk about revisiting a classic, the challenges facing his team of engineers, and creating an icon in the new Atrio.

What was the idea behind the new Atrio?

For me, the very definition of an icon is something that you can draw from memory. We are referring to Atrio as a portrait of elegance and precision. It’s a firmly contemporary design, yet with the right interior decor strategy, it could fit into a classic or more cosmopolitan environment too. Because we’ve used such a simple, singular geometry for Atrio, the precision has an analogue, tactile feel to it. So much of our contemporary world is digital and uber-connected, we really felt as if we needed to prioritise this tactility.

How is this driven by the technology that’s inside, like the cartridges?

The quality of the Atrio design results from the level of craftsmanship behind the tap, and also from the precision of our high-quality cartridges. There are three principles that we drew from to create this outcome. Firstly, the cylindrical element that drives the entire line. Next, an absolutely pure intersection of all these geometries. Finally, an obsessive attention to proportion. We wanted Atrio to celebrate the quality of the GROHE cartridge –being a perfect expression of our design DNA.