Taps that are the synthesis of aesthetics and design

Formal essentiality, attention to detail and advanced technological solutions. QuadroDesign’s Q collection represents the company’s aesthetic and design process in synthesis; that is why it bears the brand’s initial. The Italian company, which specialises in bathroom and kitchen taps and water purification systems, combines in it two pure geometric forms, superimposed and aligned, to create a new architectural model. The collection is designed by Studio Adolini, the Rome-based studio of architects and designers Romano and Niccolò Adolini.

In this article we explain where Q’s formal language comes from, why QuadroDesign makes all its taps in AISI 316L stainless steel, which pieces and finishes the collection included in 2021, how it differs from Valvola01, Studio Adolini’s other collection for the brand, and what to bear in mind when specifying it.

Two pure forms, one identity

Q was conceived as a statement of principles. QuadroDesign explains that the collection sums up its way of understanding the product, which is why it took the name of its initial. The language is deliberately pared back: a cylindrical body and a disc, or a disc and a small handle, two elementary geometries resting one on top of the other on the same axis. This superimposition is repeated across mixers, spouts, showers and controls, so that the whole is recognisable as a single family at the basin, bidet, bath or shower.

Studio Adolini, founded in Rome in 1984, is a multidisciplinary studio working in civil and industrial architecture, monument restoration, museography, interior design, product design and graphics. For QuadroDesign it has designed, in addition to Q, the Levo, Valvola01 and Valvola02 collections. The approach is the brand’s own: reducing the object to its essentials so that the taps accompany the architecture of the bathroom without imposing themselves.

Quadro combines attention to materials with a commitment to design, understood as an indispensable ingredient for making timeless products, both in function and in aesthetics.

AISI 316L stainless steel, the brand’s material

The main material in this collection, as in almost all QuadroDesign products, is AISI 316L stainless steel. According to the manufacturer, it is highly resistant to high and low temperatures, fully recyclable, hygienic, non-toxic and suitable for outdoor installation. QuadroDesign has worked exclusively with this steel since 2001, when giving up brass meant breaking with the traditional way of making taps.

The company attributes a low impact across the entire life cycle to uncoated steel: it needs no chrome plating or other coatings in production, does not corrode or release harmful elements in contact with water, and can be recycled at the end of its service life. In the brushed finish, what you see is the material itself, with no added layers that could wear away.

When this article was published, in autumn 2021, QuadroDesign was celebrating its twentieth anniversary with a motto, ‘an ode to steel and water’, which gives its title to the film and photography book with which it marked the occasion. Q is one of the collections that best sums up that trajectory: a further commitment to a noble metal capable of offering inexhaustible possibilities in design and usability.

What the Q collection included

A wide range from which to choose the option best suited to the project’s design.

In October 2021, QuadroDesign’s catalogue brought together pieces for the whole bathroom in the Q collection: deck-mounted, floor-standing and wall-mounted basin mixers, bidet taps, bath and shower sets, a shower head, a hand shower and shower columns. The table summarises the families with their references, as they then appeared on the manufacturer’s website.

Most of the pieces are progressive mixers: a single control turns on the water and adjusts the temperature with the same rotation, from cold to hot. QuadroDesign’s technical sheets describe the letter V as the two-control version, R as the version mounted on a plate and T as the traditional mixer version. All share the same material and are offered in brushed stainless steel and in two PVD finishes, Light Gold and Black Gold.

The end result gives spaces character. Because the whole system shares the same language, a complete bathroom, from basin to shower, can be resolved with the same basic piece repeated in different configurations.

Valvola01, Studio Adolini’s other collection

The original article presented Valvola01 as a series within Q. In fact it is a separate collection, also designed by Studio Adolini in AISI 316L steel, with its own catalogue of wall-mounted and floor-standing taps for basins, baths and showers.

Its starting point is different. Valvola01 draws on the appeal of industrial taps, with the typical hydraulic and gas ball valves, and reinterprets them in a concise, very contemporary form: its controls have a flat lever reminiscent of those valves. It is a source of inspiration for settings and projects that call for a more industrial reading; Q, by contrast, opts for the pure geometry of disc and cylinder. QuadroDesign describes it as a single concealed system combined with different supply elements. In 2020 it won an Archiproducts Design Award, according to the manufacturer.

Key points when specifying Q taps

These are the points worth settling at project stage:

• Concealed and visible parts: wall-mounted mixers, shower and bath sets and concealed mixers need a hidden part that is installed on site. The piece must be defined before the walls are closed.
• Control version: the single-control progressive mixer simplifies use; the V version separates hot and cold water into two controls, and the R version brings the elements together on a plate, useful on bath rims and walls where an orderly reading is wanted.
• Finish: brushed steel is the material itself; Light Gold and Black Gold are PVD coatings applied over the steel. It is advisable to unify the finish of all the taps and accessories in the bathroom.
• Outdoors: AISI 316L allows taps to be installed outdoors, according to the manufacturer, and the collection includes shower columns that QuadroDesign proposes for outdoor use.
• Installation: QuadroDesign’s current guide recommends a working pressure of 2 to 5 bar, with a pressure reducer above 5 bar, isolating valves with a filter upstream of the mixer and a water softener in areas with very hard water.

QuadroDesign, twenty years in stainless steel

QuadroDesign is based in San Maurizio d'Opaglio, on the shores of Lake Orta in northern Italy, and is run by siblings Enrico and Elena Magistro. It is the successor to Rubinetterie Magistro, the tap company founded by their parents in 1978, which in the 1990s developed Idealaqua, a drinking-water purification system the brand still offers. QuadroDesign was founded in 2001, with a name that places water at its centre and adds the word design.

The brand states that its products are made and assembled in Italy with metals, components and materials of Italian origin, and that it holds ISO 9001 certification. It has also separated the functional variables of the concealed parts, starting with the cartridge, so that the specifier works with a single specification code.

Epilogue: a few weeks after this article, in November 2021, Q was one of the winners of the Archiproducts Design Awards 2021, and in 2022 it received an award from Interior Design Magazine, according to QuadroDesign.

At Matter we help you plan the complete bathroom: the taps, sanitaryware and the wall finishes that go with them. In our material library you can compare materials and finishes with your technical team and ask us about QuadroDesign’s collections.