Designing the bathrooms inside ‘Ireland’s most sustainable hotel’

Wren Urban Nest is a stunning new hotel with 137 guestrooms tucked into a quiet corner of Dublin, making it an ideal place to stay in the city. Located on the edge of the Creative Quarter, the hotel has Dublin’s best restaurants, bars and boutiques right on the doorstep. Wren Urban Nest has been designed to focus on compact luxury and energy efficiency. It has been constructed using advanced sustainable technologies – eliminating the need for fossil fuels and allowing the venue to use 100 per cent renewable electricity to achieve ‘Net Zero Carbon’ status.

Image credit: Wren Urban Nest

Award-winning multi-disciplinary interior design consultancy 21 Spaces created the hotel’s distinctive interiors, which offer a luxurious yet cosy design aesthetic, using natural materials and earthy tones. Its small-format bedrooms are supported by smart, sustainable technologies and materials, with fit-outs inspired by contemporary Irish craft. The hotel’s design team chose Roca for the guest bathrooms.

“With a shared ethos for sustainability, Roca offered the Wren Urban Nest Hotel a range of bathroom products which are manufactured to the highest standards,” explained Eimear O’Neill, Specification Sales Manager for Roca. “Sustainability is at the heart of our business, from the implementation of more efficient production processes to the development of solutions that contribute to the reduction of water and energy consumption. This enables us to progressively reduce the environmental footprint of our entire value chain. In collaboration with the Wren, we contributed the all-important versatile bathroom solutions required for their perfectly appointed guest en-suites, where great designs meets functionality.”

The bathrooms feature the distinctive Roca Bol countertop washbasins designed by Ramon Benedito and made from vitreous china. Taking an elegantly organic shape as its design basis, the white basin adds a unique charm and character to the bathroom space. Clean, simple and decidedly modern, this countertop basin has a fresh and inspiring design. Featuring a sloping profile, it plays with symmetry and asymmetry alike, creating a unique design statement.

The shower area features Roca’s T-1,000 thermostatic mixers, designed for maximum safety and comfort. The collection features a minimalist and modern design to ensure it will blend harmoniously into any setting. The thermostatic shower valves are compatible with the RocaBox universal system, which makes installation faster by allowing them to be easily built-in behind the wall (with a minimum installation depth of just 70mm). Roca’s exclusive Evershine electrolytic coating guarantees a long-lasting shine and makes for easy cleaning.

For a luxury shower experience, the Roca Rainsense round shower head in chrome has been installed, for an invigorating, powerful shower. Featuring Easyclean® which makes cleaning easier, by preventing limescale from building up, ensuring a practical, as well as luxurious, shower choice.

Completing the shower specification is the Roca Loft shower handset. The Loft collection features modern design and technology to create strong and high-quality elements. This design is timeless with a refined and precise finish.

The Wren hotel guest bathrooms feature Roca’s innovative Duplo In-Wall frames for wall hung WCs, a system that combines efficiency and technology. Sustainability is key to this product, with flush volumes ranging from 4/2L-6/3L offering excellent water saving benefits. For example, if set on the lower scale and based on four flushes a day in each hotel room, the Duplo system could save more than 1,000 litres of water per day.

Director of Moran Hospitality and Hotel Operator, Tracey Moran said: “We couldn’t be more excited to have Wren Urban Nest open. We are passionate about the environment and believe in taking little steps towards a better planet. It was a pleasure working with suppliers like Roca who share the same sustainable and ethical values as we do without compromising on quality of product. This was an extremely important consideration for Wren Urban Nest. We wanted the hotel to be finished to an exceptionally high standard without compromising on its eco values and still be able to deliver a luxury experience for our guests.”

> Since you’re here, why not read about Roca’s Ona collection? 

Roca is one of our Recommended Suppliers and regularly features in our Supplier News section of the website. If you are interested in becoming one of our Recommended Suppliers, please email Katy Phillips.

Main image credit: Wren Urban Nest