product has to be perfect,’ says Tofting. ‘Even
though we’ve been making products for 50
years now, we keep perfecting them.’ She says
that Vola mixers can be distinguished by the
way the spout is flawlessly soldered onto the
body, as well as by the quality of the surface.
‘The brushing of the stainless steel is an
essential part of the design. We use technol-
ogy to help with the hard work, but also to
make the impossible possible.’ By rethinking
its processes, Vola can also eliminate some
labour-intensive aspects of production, but it
doesn’t compromise on handcraft to do so.
Precision in production leads to long-
lasting results – counteracting today’s throw-
away culture is just one of Vola’s sustainabil-
ity practices – and the entire manufacturing
process takes place in Denmark. ‘Keeping
everything under one roof allows us to con-
trol all aspects of production and to maintain
our commitment to quality,’ says Nygaard,
‘which in turn helps us to secure a healthy
working environment and a conscious use of
natural resources.’ He explains that the com-
pany recycles 100 per cent of its raw materi-
als. ‘We don’t buy new brass; we recycle the
raw material from our last production run
and reuse it in new bars.’ It’s something Vola
was doing long before greenwashing came
into play. Another sustainability-driven con-
cept is to ‘keep supplying parts for Vola taps
that are up to 50 years old’, says Tofting. ‘And
every time we introduce a technical improve-
ment, we design it in such a way that older
generations of taps can be upgraded.’
More important, though, is the
world’s lack of drinking water. ‘This tops the
list of environmental problems that needto be solved,’ says Tofting. ‘The responsibil-
ity for water and the need for a bathroom
as a place for recuperation and relaxation
don’t contradict each other. Conscious water
consumption is an absolute necessity in our
modern world. With flow regulators, you can
configure Vola taps to meet a user’s specific
needs – and that saves water.’
Dealing with the bathroom as a ‘place
for recuperation and relaxation’ feeds the cur-
rent wave of wellness, a topic the brand has
been exploring since its early days. ‘Vola sees
the bathroom as an escape from worldly mat-
ters,’ says Tofting. Noticing recent expansion
in the area of wellness, Vola launched two
new therapeutic products in 2015 – the 070W
Kneipp Hose and the 080W Waterfall Shower- as part of a ‘holistic sauna experience’.
The last 50 years have seen Vola
grow from a small Danish company into an
international brand with locations in ten
countries outside its native land. A half-cen-
tury ago, Arne Jacobsen sought to transform
disorderly, solely functional bathrooms into
harmonious environments, ‘and that’s still
our ambition’, says Tofting. ‘We’ll keep
developing innovative, impeccably crafted
bathroom products based on Vola’s original
design DNA. Our vision is celebrating both
continuity and change, so that’s what we’ll
keep doing.’ ●
Check out vola.com to see the brand’s celebratory
50 th-anniversary film series
vola.com
The responsibility “
for water and
the need for
a bathroom
as a place for
relaxation
don’t contradict
each other
Like Jacobsen’s original design, more recent
products – such as the modular T39 towel
warmer (below) – conceal all technical
components behind the bathroom wall.162 REPORTS