What did you have in mind?
Trade terms for professionals and design studios
One sentence in Fantini’s catalogue sets a test that anyone can run while standing at the basin. Nostromo, it says, is “the archetype of contemporary design taps”: a sharply defined volume “where nothing can be added or removed”. So count the parts. In the catalogue photographs there are three: a cylindrical body, a short spout leaving it at an angle, a cylindrical handle on top. On this piece of designer brassware the eye finds no fourth thing to rest on.
The design is by Davide Mercatali and the taps are made by Fantini at Pella, on Lake Orta. An object this plain has nowhere to hide a poor line, and that exposure is why it suits a bathroom kept for guests, the one room in which a visitor is left alone with the fittings and has time to look.
The same volume turns up at every water point. At the basin it is a single-hole mixer in several heights, a two-hole set, a wall or floor version, a spout apart from its control, or a sensor-operated mixer. The bidet has its own; the shower has concealed and thermostatic mixers, one run by push-buttons; the bath, fillers for wall, rim and floor; the kitchen, three sink mixers. Nostromo Small keeps the drawing, slimmer at basin and bidet. Most basin, bidet, shower and bath models come in eleven finishes, ten on brass and the eleventh in brushed stainless steel. La Mercanti puts the tap on your basin and asks what you would take away.
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Yes, one. Among the single-hole basin mixers Fantini lists a version with a clinical lever where the cylindrical handle would be; its reach matches the standard model’s, 11.5 cm or 4.5 in. It is made in two finishes only, Chrome and Brushed Stainless Steel, which is worth knowing before a darker PVD colour is settled for everything else in the room. Fantini names the lever and says no more about it. Anyone who wants it should say so at the outset, because on Nostromo the handle is chosen together with the model.
The proportions, and only in two places. Fantini describes Nostromo Small as the same style with slimmer proportions in the washbasin and bidet models; the reduced size, it says, leaves the fundamental features as they were and presses further the idea of making a product by taking material away. In figures: at the single-hole basin mixer Small reaches 11 cm where Nostromo reaches 11.5 (4.3 against 4.5 in), and the mid-height Small stands 25.2 cm tall against 26.1 (9.9 against 10.3 in). La Mercanti sets the two side by side at the basin, where the difference is easier to judge than on paper.
By its cartridge and by its reach. Of the three single-hole sink mixers in the series, one works on a joystick cartridge and has the longest projection, 22 cm (8.7 in). The other two have swivel spouts of 18.5 and 17.5 cm (7.3 and 6.9 in), the first with a pull-out single-jet spray. The joystick model is made in Chrome, whereas the swivel pair also come in five PVD colours. All three are limited to 8 l/min (2.1 gpm) at 3 bar (43.5 psi). If the kitchen has to match a bathroom in PVD, that narrows the choice to the two swivel models.
Each basin mixer carries a limiter that holds the flow to 5 l/min (1.3 gpm) when the supply is at 3 bar (43.5 psi), and the bidet mixers are listed the same way. The figure is the manufacturer’s; we pass it on as a number and leave the arithmetic to whoever is working out the consumption of the building. In the kitchen the limiter is set higher, at 8 l/min (2.1 gpm) for an equal pressure. For a specifier the useful point is that one value heads the whole basin chapter, whatever the installation.
They are two different tools. The Idrospray serves personal hygiene: a mixer concealed in the wall feeds an outlet fitted with a holder, from which runs a flexible brass hose of 120 cm (47 in); rosettes or a plate finish the wall. The Idroscopino, meant for cleaning the WC, takes cold water only, and a stop valve is part of the set. Because one mixes hot and cold and the other takes a single supply, the plumber needs to know which of them is planned before the pipes go into the wall. Fantini lists both in the bidet section of the series.
On Nostromo the spout and the control can be two separate pieces. Five steps to place the control, then bring the water from the counter, the wall, the floor or the ceiling.
With Nostromo the control can leave the spout altogether. Fantini lists two ways of doing it: a deck mixer, which is the control alone standing on the counter, or a concealed mixer set in the wall with a single outlet. Settle this first, since it decides whether the wall has to be opened.
Three spouts stand on the counter. The lowest is 13.5 cm (5.3 in) high and projects 14.5 cm (5.7 in); the other two rise to 28 cm (11 in) and 50 cm (19.7 in) and reach 18.5 cm (7.3 in) over the bowl. Hold each height against the section of the basin on the drawing before settling on one.
The wall spout comes in three projections: 15, 20 or 25 cm (5.9, 7.9 or 9.8 in). Paired with the concealed mixer it leaves the counter completely clear; paired with the deck control it keeps a single piece beside the bowl. Mark the projection on the plan against the centre of the basin.
There is also a floor spout, with a projection of 24 cm (9.4 in). It is a spout and nothing else: the water is still mixed by the separate control, on the wall or on a surface close by. Fix its position on the floor plan at the same moment as the basin’s, so that the two are drawn as a pair.
The last option is the ceiling spout, 140 cm (55 in) long, which the catalogue shows over a column basin with the mixer on the wall. It is made in nine of the finishes. Check the height of the room against that length on the section drawing, and place the basin directly beneath it.
