Kohler Co. Captures Coveted Gold iF Design Award and 12 Additional iF Design Accolades
Kohler Co. secured 13 iF product design awards under its Kohler, Mira and Klafs brands, emphasizing the company’s significant impact on global design and innovation. In this year’s iF design competition, Kohler’s product designs secured recognition in several categories, including the coveted Gold award, which earned Kohler a place among only 75 Gold winners at the upcoming award ceremony in Berlin. Kohler’s multiple awards represent innovative designs and technologies developed in each of the company’s global studios – United States, United Kingdom, India, and China.
With 10,800 entries from 72 countries, the iF Design Awards is one of the most prestigious and relevant design competitions in the world. To be the recipient of the iF Design Award means passing a rigorous two-stage selection by renowned design experts, who evaluate submissions based on idea, form, function, differentiation, and impact.
Creativity and leading-edge design are the heart and soul of the Kohler ethos and its teams of bold creators around the world are the foundation of some of the most iconic brands in home design. The company has forged a reputation for innovation, artistry, and design while also possessing an operating philosophy rooted in entrepreneurial spirit, tenacity, and humility.
“For more than 150 years, Kohler has been dedicated to advancing innovation and unparalleled design. It is a tremendous honor to be recognized for the passion and ingenuity of our development teams,” says David Kohler, Chair and CEO of Kohler Co. “This recognition from iF affirms our ongoing commitment to creating impactful solutions in all markets across the globe.”
Kohler’s design prowess has been celebrated for well over a century, including a 1920s feature installation of the company’s color bathroom fixtures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, major partnerships with globally renowned artists and designers, showstopping installations in some of the most revered design meccas and world-class designed environments, and dozens of accolades spanning myriad product categories. Kohler product designs have garnered nearly 100 iF awards in the past two decades alone, as well as earning top rankings in all leading global design awards including Red Dot, IDEA and Fast Company.
The KOHLER Loope container-based sanitation toilet, a 2024 iF GOLD Product Design Award recipient – and the company’s first-ever Gold level award recipient – is a waterless sanitation solution that integrates with container-based sanitation waste collection models. It was designed to bring safe sanitation to dense urban environments where alternative options are often nonexistent. The Loope toilet was developed within Kohler’s Innovation for Good (IfG) platform, an in-house incubator focused on creating new business opportunities with a social and environmental purpose. The IfG solutions are rooted in making positive impacts on communities and lives around the world by increasing access to safe water and sanitation.
The Loope toilet was inspired by UN Sustainable Development Goal #6 of “ensuring access to safe and affordable sanitation for all,” and iF design award jurors noted that “this is a great example of design innovation in the service of humanity.”
“As part of our Innovation for Good portfolio, Loope has the real potential to positively impact a significant number of lives around the world. Winning the Gold iF design award brings much needed attention to the issue of unsafe sanitation that affects so many people,” says Laura Kohler, Chief Sustainable Living Officer for Kohler Co. “This and other products stemming from our IfG incubator program harness associates’ passions to develop meaningful solutions that provide greater access to sustainable living.”
Kohler Co. – under its Kohler, Mira and Klafs brands – received 12 additional iF Product Design Awards for solutions in showering, bathroom faucets, toilets, sinks, storage, kitchen faucets and saunas:
Receiving the awards at the ceremony, Xie Tao said: “We believe that these products make a perfect combination of advanced thin-film solar technology and sustainable product application, and the awards are an acknowledgement that Hanergy’s product design deserves to be at the forefront of the industry. We are honoured.”