Tap in to innovation | Monocle [Video]

Why do designers design? For Lun Cheak Tan, Kohler’s vice-president of industrial design, it’s always been about people and making them feel better. “When we say that the person is at the core of design – we don’t just mean the physical self,” says Tan, who is responsible for overseeing the brand’s bathroom and kitchen products, which are found in the homes, offices, hotels and restaurants of the discerning across the globe.

His work for Kohler includes intelligent toilets and touchless taps – beautiful and smart products that provide for the physical as well as the mental and spiritual wellbeing of the people using them. “It’s an approach that Kohler has taken since the day we came up with the bathtub,” says Tan. And it’s this ethos – the Dimensions of Wellbeing – that the firm celebrates as its Perspective of the Year for 2020. “We chose the word ‘dimensions’ …