A Bathtub Inspired by Traditional Asian Boat Building Techniques

Can you imagine a bathtub made of anything other than porcelain or some other stone-like material? Tal Engel throws those old ideas out the window and looks at traditional boat building techniques for inspiration. Otaku is a bathtub made of a pressed woven veneer sheet that’s held by a steel frame.

The bathtub looks at the similarities of bathing and sailing – the relaxed states of mind both produce and the fact that both are functional entities that deal with water. The concept is based on the ‘inside-out’ theory, where one washing in a tub is the opposite of a boat floating in water, therefore the inside of the tub becomes the outside of the boat. The result attempts to highlight the special relationship between our bodies and water.