January 2007

Designing Solutions' Deborah Wiener was quoted in the January 25, 2007 issue of The New York Times. In her article,"For the High-End Bathroom, Something Unexpected," author Suzanne Gannon explores the current trend by designers, architects and developers of specifying and installing high-end urinals in luxury residential bathrooms.

As urinals get the high-design treatment, they may increasingly move into master suites and powder rooms. One model with a distinctly feminine appeal is Villeroy & Boch's Oblic, which costs $910 and resembles an egg. Petite and popular in smaller bathrooms, where it can be mounted in a corner, it is likely to meet the approval of women like Deborah Wiener, an interior designer who said she hides terrycloth slippers in each bathroom of the house she shares with her husband and two sons. "My fourth design mantra is never, ever go barefoot in a man's bathroom," said Ms. Wiener, who runs Designing Solutions, based in Silver Spring, Md., and has recommended urinals to clients.

So will urinals soon become a mainstay in the American home, as common as the kitchen sink? Ms. Wiener for one, does not rule it out. "There are many things we have borrowed from commercial design for residential use," she said. "They start slowly and expand."

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