Wabi-Sabi Sink Faucets

The Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, expressed by industrial sink faucets and raw plumbing pipes.

Raw copper plumbing pipes and valves, and industrial style sink faucets are a look sometimes embraced by avant garde architects. I adore my sink jewelry but piping has its own kind of graceful beauty that I also could easily live with in the right space. The Japanese put a name to the look – wabi-sabi – which is a bit of a catchall but then, so is “rustic.” In Africa and Asia, where sink fixtures can be affected by tropical weather, industrial style sink faucets are a practical approach often paired with concrete sinks. In the U.S. it becomes more of a style statement that gets greatest traction in mudrooms and greenhouses. Traditional Moroccan copper bathroom sink fixtures [top] fall into this category and, indeed, are paired with a poured concrete sink in this bathroom. In Moroccan homes, concrete is a more affordable alternative to traditional tadelakt, or plaster.

A plain cold-water plumbing pipe, protruding from the stone, is simply fitted with a brass tap spigot as a wall-mounted fixture. This all-purpose faucet serves a shallow, antique limestone farm sink.

The unused garage on a country property of an Alpine weekend house was transformed by Italian architects into an upscale gardening-oriented space (covered by green vegetation!) that also includes a kitchen and entertaining area. The concrete sink is fitted with galvanized steel plumbing with lever handles fitted on valves.

A Pennsylvania greenhouse sink was designed by the manager of the farm property who paired it with a simple copper-pipe spout and repurposed green-glass doorknobs for hot and cold handles.

Serious hot and cold water shut-off valves (which most of us hide under our sinks or behind appliances) were attractively worked into an elemental bathroom sink for home on Langkawi Island, Malaysia. I would love to steal this look for a kitchen or laundry.

(Source: nytimes, houzz, actromegialli, nytimes, building bloc)

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