Deca decadence

Monica Geran -- Interior Design, 1/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Each year, Brazilian bathroom manufacturer Deca invites an exceptionally talented designer to its São Paolo showroom to create a temporary tableau with the company's products. The procedure's unwritten rules, explains architect Kiko Salomão, who completed the installation shown, call for Deca to invent an aspirational occupant to guide the selection of fixtures, fittings, materials, and ancillaries for the 144-square-foot space. This time, the fictitious resident was a stylish, arts-minded bachelor in his 30s, an intellectual, sybarite, and man-about-town.

For this discerning bon vivant, Salomão selected from among Deca's most modern lines, including Duna, Belle Epoque, and Ritz. Basin, toilet, and bidet are porcelain; showerhead, fittings, pipes, and metal components are chrome. Imported from Turkey, Salomé marble covers walls, floor, and vanity unit, with a trough between the shower and the rest of the room to handle drainage. As a contrast to the polish of the Deca items and the high gloss of the stone—a medley of gray, pink, and burgundy veining on white—Salomão added a capacious, monolithic armchair that artist Hugo França carved in pequi, a Brazilian wood. (And, yes, the resident gentleman reputedly dotes on expensive toiletries and shaving accoutrements from Alfred Dunhill, Lush, and the like.)

Surfacing the ceiling are polycarbonate panels backlit by a celestial scattering of tiny fluorescent lights. The architect's true masterstroke, however, is a gas fireplace recessed into the wall between the bidet and the shower, some 3 feet above the baseline. The fire-and-water ploy imparts a feeling of relaxation, says Salomão: "There's nothing like taking a shower, then warming up at a heat source." Never mind that there's no cold season in Brazil.

BASIN, TOILET, SHOWER FITTINGS, SINK FITTINGS, BIDET: DECA. MARBLE: TAMBORE. TOWELS: THROUGH TRUSSARDI. FIREPLACE: CONSTRUFLAMA LAREIRAS E CHURRASQUEIRAS. CUSTOM LIGHTING: LUMINI.