Alessi Sense by Hansa is the award-winning result of a collaboration with the Italian design firm Alessi. The product family represents a perfect blend of form and function. The main focus of this collaboration was motivating people to become more conscious of how they use water in their daily lives.
In 2016, Alessi Sense by Hansa washbasin tap 07732201 and 07742201 were rewarded with the Red Dot Award: Product Design.
How it works
Conserving resources means more than just switching off the light when you leave the room: It is also about reducing water consumption. Alessi Sense by Hansa allows for intuitive and at the same time controlled use of water. There is a semi-transparent Touch-Control at the top of the tap that you operate as a button. The tap is opened by pressing gently on top of it, after which it remains open for six seconds. A longer press lights up the LED lights on top of the tap and lets the water flow for a minute unless the tap is manually closed before that. The LED lights act as a timer, incrementally turning off the longer the tap runs, this gives you a sense of how long the water actually flows and you learn how to use it more consciously. Alessi Sense is available as a high rise kitchen tap or the more compact basin tap for the bathroom enabling this water-saving technology to be used throughout the whole household.
Alessi
The Italian company was founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi initially producing metal kitchenware, the aim: to mass-produce desirable, high quality, everyday household products. The company’s innovation soon saw them world-renowned for their industrial design. You may recognise “Juicy Salif” the citrus squeezer designed by Phillipe Starck for Alessi in 1990.
Rodrigo Torres
The Alessi Sense was designed by Rodrigo Torres for Alessi and Hansa. Born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1976, Rodrigo Torres obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá and later his Master’s degree in Design from Domus Academy of Milan. Rodrigo Torres has worked for major international companies such as Alessi, Nike and Poliform. Over the years, he has participated in several international exhibitions and has been rewarded with prestigious design awards. His work has been published in some of the most important design publications in the world.
From the Designer
These objects were designed to invite the user to interact with them. To achieve this we designed a simple and intuitive interface that merges the gesture of the human touch with the water saving technology. This fact allows us to introduce into our domestic environment a family of products with a high symbolic and functional value. In times when caring about our most precious natural resource should be our absolute priority, objects like these represent an archetypal evolution where design, technology and ethics are merged into a family of smart and sleek products.
Rodrigo Torres
