MOHONTO - Sustainable Shower Head

MOHONTO – Sustainable Shower Head

The Client

MOHONTO is a modern, high performing shower head, engineered by the design team at ITERATE. The typical shower head assembly is comprised of multiple plastic and silicone parts, many of which are ultra-sonically welded together. This has gone unchanged for years and makes the shower head almost impossible to recycle and disassemble at the end of its life-in-service. ITERATE’s design team also observed that for those living in rented accommodation and in certain geographical areas, upgrading their water system for a better shower experience, is simply unfeasible. Therefore, we set out to design a shower head that could increase water pressure captured in a minimalist aesthetic fit for the contemporary bathroom.

Design Challenge

To create good pressure within the shower head without using an excessive volume of water, we utilised Bernoulli’s Principle within our design. Given the intended product form, this meant the water needed to exit the shower head at 90° from the angle of entry, whilst, importantly, still falling directly onto the user. Once achieved, further challenges arose. Our focus turned to ensuring the water leaving the shower head was both laminar in flow and radially uniform. This was vital for the water to be evenly dispersed around the 360° hole profiles of the cone pattern, and avoiding any unwanted spluttering. Underpinning all individual design challenges, was the need to make sure that manufacturing of the MOHONTO shower head remained economically viable. This demanded a balance between design priorities: cost to manufacture, performance and retaining the modern aesthetic to capture the brief.

“This is the first independent product that has been developed by the ITERATE team. So far, we have received fantastic market feedback on the product and we are very excited to launch MOHONTO later in the year” – Gethin Roberts, Managing Director at ITERATE Design + Innovation

Our Solution

To minimise the manufacturing cost of the MOHONTO shower head, we drew upon the team’s extensive knowledge of manufacturing processes, tailoring the design for the machining process throughout development. We explored multiple design options at length, experimenting, for example, with 1 and 2-piece designs and evaluating which would result in a lower unit cost. This led us to the insight that a 2-piece construction would overcomplicate the product. The requirement to join and seal the separate parts together would involve additional material resource and could also change the design aesthetic. Our solution, then, was a 1-piece machined aluminium design with simple internal cavities and as few machining operations as possible. 3D printing the cone inserts also helped us to enhance the MOHONTO product, allowing users to choose the water patterns that gave the best sensation and shower experience for them.

Final Outcome

Through ITERATE’s expertise in design for manufacture we redefined the shower head, creating a new shower head that allows its users to experience a powerful shower using a more simple, environmentally-considered product. Beyond, the benefit of better water pressure, MOHONTO’s varied array of cone inserts delivers numerous water patterns and sensations, encouraging users to personalise their shower experiences. With just 3 component parts altogether (machined aluminium body, 3D printed or potentially injection-moulded cones and the o-ring), the MOHONTO shower head will also crucially have a smaller environmental impact than the majority of products in this space.