If you give your bathtub a breath, you’ll give the Earth a breath. That’s the concept behind Breathing Bathtub by Xi Li, the project that won the 2009 Jump The Gap International Design Contest, a privately run contest for bathroom interior design held in London last month.

Now you ask – a bathtub that breathes? Exactly! The young and avant-garde Chinese designer, Li Xi, thought that a system that replicates plants’ way of breath can give a boost both to your bathing experience and to ecology.

Xi’s Breathing Bathtub is lined with a revolutionary material similar to a sponge, which will mold itself to your body. This has the huge advantage of reducing the water to use to more than half the water you use in a regular bathtub!

And why does Li say that this bathtub breathes? Because it does! This same material that moulds itself to your shape also filters the water. The process is similar to “osmosis” in plants – all the impurities are taken to the bottom layer of the lining, and you use only clean water all the time. This avoids you from open again the tap and waste water.

Working Details

How does it work? All the secret is in the lining. It is composed by three different layers, each of them having its own function. You are in contact with the top layer, so it is smooth and molds to your shape, as said. This layer has the advantage of letting you add to it your favorite bathing lotion of perfume, enhancing the pleasure experience. As if it were not enough, through a gentle movement of your body you let it remove your skin dead cells. No doctor fish needed!

The second layer is responsible for the water filtering and cleaning. How? It analyzes the water all the time, catches the impurities and then stores them in the third layer.

The third layer keeps the impurities and process them in a process similar to composting toilet. Impurities find their way back to the water system and then reduce pollution even more.

As you can guess, the second layer can become very dirty after doing its job. When you finish your bath, just unplug it and it will clean itself!

Color and Health

Eco-friendly designed stuff is never just eco-friendly, but also easy, comfortable and pleasant. And the Breathing Bathtub has its other comfortable side.

So, ok, guess you trust the system and you decide you leave the water into the bathtub after you got a bath. You know you can use it again because the lining will do the job of remove all the impurities. However, there must be a moment when you must change the water.

If you are using a sophisticated bathtub such as the Breathing Bathtub, will you trust your eye do determine when to change the water? Of course not, right? That’s why the lining changes its color – to tell you when it’s time to, yes, finally, “waste” some more water for your next relaxing bath.