The Architect's Newspaper announced pba as the winner of the Appliances + Plumbing: Bathroom Category for its Design For All Bathroom Accessories, and the recipient of an honorable mention in the Hardware: Architectural Category for its Single-Motion Unlatching Door Pull, as part of the 2024 Best of Products Awards.
The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Products Awards acknowledges the leading manufacturers, designers, engineers, and artisans whose inventions are crucial to the built environment. AN’s awards program celebrates the vast and ever-evolving industry of architectural products, as it’s these that allow architects to build better and bigger projects that can more precisely respond to the world around them.
A consideration for how products operate within a larger ecosystem was a common theme that united many of the winners picks this year. This includes a consideration for the global climate crisis, an issue that prompted designers to devise creative and affordable alternatives and solutions. Beyond sustainability, this year’s winners carefully reflected on how products and building materials influence lifestyle choices, from health and nutrition to hygiene and sanitation habits.
pba developed the Design for All Bathroom Accessories Collection - AN’s Best of Products Winner - to design public spaces that balance practical use and beauty without compromise.
The collection is an expression of materiality and form at its purest. Crafted by hand of AISI 316L stainless steel - the hardest, most resistant, and most elastic of steels - maximum attention was given to creating minimal shapes with refined details, all to reduce visual clutter and to deliver an elevated and user-friendly experience.
From the absence of flanges and exposed hinges to a trademark reveal that imparts a discernible lightness and makes installation on uneven surfaces more forgiving, every item in the range brings an incomparable elegance and sense of modernity to the restroom environment. Conceived to blend into a space rather than to distract the eye, and a step away from the institutional look common to the market, Design for All was developed to support inclusion beautifully.
“Understated and also very utilitarian—but in a more of a minimal, designed way. It wasn’t necessarily bringing so much attention to it, just acknowledging that this is what I am, and this is what I do.” says Brian Messana, Member of the Award Jury and Cofounder Messana O’Rorke.
Related in form and finish, pba's new range of Design for All Bathroom Accessories allows designers to source everything they need from one place, ensuring a more unified and seamless integration within spaces. This approach ensures that all users, regardless of physical abilities or limitations, feel included and respected, enjoying the same consideration for their needs and autonomy as everyone else. Designed for all, the collection enhances not only the bathroom experience but also promotes greater inclusivity.
” We are honored to receive these 2024 AN’s 2024 Best of Products Awards. From an inclusive design perspective, the challenge lies in creating more inclusive restrooms with solutions that are both unique and accessible to all. Our goal is to design products that, while originating from the same mold (identical for all), can meet diverse needs. Accessibility is the right to access. When a product fails to provide this, it falls short of being a truly good product.” says Francesca Masiero, President of pba.
pba also received an honorable mention in the Hardware: Architectural Category for its Single-Motion Unlatching Door Pull, a life-safety hardware that secures glass, wood, and metal swing doors with ultra-easy installation and simple, intuitive use. Ideal for most any type of security door that does not require panic hardware, a gentle push on the exit side grip is all that is required to release the latch and open the door. Operable with a key or electronic card reader on the entry side, the pull requires no electronic sensor or release button on the egress side.
Single-Motion Unlatching Door Pull unlatches and opens the door with a single movement using the Activation Area, easily operable with one hand, without tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist. The Activation Area includes the Grip in powder coated aluminum or leather wrapped and the Push Coupler in ECONYL® regenerated nylon, from waste such as fishing nets, old carpets destined for landfills, plastic components and fabric scraps from mills. As well as being a solution on waste, ECONYL® is also better when it comes to climate change. It reduces the global warming impact of nylon by up to 90% compared with the material from oil.
pba is committed to manufacturing sustainable and recyclable hardware and bathware. The Design for All Bathroom Accessories and the Single Motion Unlatching Door Pull are designed for easy disassembly, allowing for the recycling the individual components at end of their life cycle. The collections have an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), contribute to LEED requirements and hold a Declare Red List Free label, all contributing to a sustainable future.
All products in these collections meet ADA requirements and are suitable for installations that need to comply with ADA and similar accessibility standards.
pba collaborated with Gensler, serving as product design consultant, in developing these groundbreaking products.
The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Products Awards acknowledges the leading manufacturers, designers, engineers, and artisans whose inventions are crucial to the built environment. AN’s awards program celebrates the vast and ever-evolving industry of architectural products, as it’s these that allow architects to build better and bigger projects that can more precisely respond to the world around them.
A consideration for how products operate within a larger ecosystem was a common theme that united many of the winners picks this year. This includes a consideration for the global climate crisis, an issue that prompted designers to devise creative and affordable alternatives and solutions. Beyond sustainability, this year’s winners carefully reflected on how products and building materials influence lifestyle choices, from health and nutrition to hygiene and sanitation habits.
pba developed the Design for All Bathroom Accessories Collection - AN’s Best of Products Winner - to design public spaces that balance practical use and beauty without compromise.
The collection is an expression of materiality and form at its purest. Crafted by hand of AISI 316L stainless steel - the hardest, most resistant, and most elastic of steels - maximum attention was given to creating minimal shapes with refined details, all to reduce visual clutter and to deliver an elevated and user-friendly experience.
From the absence of flanges and exposed hinges to a trademark reveal that imparts a discernible lightness and makes installation on uneven surfaces more forgiving, every item in the range brings an incomparable elegance and sense of modernity to the restroom environment. Conceived to blend into a space rather than to distract the eye, and a step away from the institutional look common to the market, Design for All was developed to support inclusion beautifully.
“Understated and also very utilitarian—but in a more of a minimal, designed way. It wasn’t necessarily bringing so much attention to it, just acknowledging that this is what I am, and this is what I do.” says Brian Messana, Member of the Award Jury and Cofounder Messana O’Rorke.
Related in form and finish, pba's new range of Design for All Bathroom Accessories allows designers to source everything they need from one place, ensuring a more unified and seamless integration within spaces. This approach ensures that all users, regardless of physical abilities or limitations, feel included and respected, enjoying the same consideration for their needs and autonomy as everyone else. Designed for all, the collection enhances not only the bathroom experience but also promotes greater inclusivity.
” We are honored to receive these 2024 AN’s 2024 Best of Products Awards. From an inclusive design perspective, the challenge lies in creating more inclusive restrooms with solutions that are both unique and accessible to all. Our goal is to design products that, while originating from the same mold (identical for all), can meet diverse needs. Accessibility is the right to access. When a product fails to provide this, it falls short of being a truly good product.” says Francesca Masiero, President of pba.
pba also received an honorable mention in the Hardware: Architectural Category for its Single-Motion Unlatching Door Pull, a life-safety hardware that secures glass, wood, and metal swing doors with ultra-easy installation and simple, intuitive use. Ideal for most any type of security door that does not require panic hardware, a gentle push on the exit side grip is all that is required to release the latch and open the door. Operable with a key or electronic card reader on the entry side, the pull requires no electronic sensor or release button on the egress side.
Single-Motion Unlatching Door Pull unlatches and opens the door with a single movement using the Activation Area, easily operable with one hand, without tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist. The Activation Area includes the Grip in powder coated aluminum or leather wrapped and the Push Coupler in ECONYL® regenerated nylon, from waste such as fishing nets, old carpets destined for landfills, plastic components and fabric scraps from mills. As well as being a solution on waste, ECONYL® is also better when it comes to climate change. It reduces the global warming impact of nylon by up to 90% compared with the material from oil.
pba is committed to manufacturing sustainable and recyclable hardware and bathware. The Design for All Bathroom Accessories and the Single Motion Unlatching Door Pull are designed for easy disassembly, allowing for the recycling the individual components at end of their life cycle. The collections have an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), contribute to LEED requirements and hold a Declare Red List Free label, all contributing to a sustainable future.
All products in these collections meet ADA requirements and are suitable for installations that need to comply with ADA and similar accessibility standards.
pba collaborated with Gensler, serving as product design consultant, in developing these groundbreaking products.
