Dezeen promotion: French designer Jean-Marie Massaud has created a collections of taps and shower fittings called Axor Edge that are produced using a diamond-tipped cutting machine more often seen in the aerospace and laser industries.
Each tap in the collection for Axor is made up of a series of "sculptural" asymmetrically combined cuboids, stacked one on top of the other for a striking effect.
The blocks are based on the idea of the gold ingot bars stored by banks, whilst also being reminiscent of vintage cigarette lighters and perfume bottles, according to the designer.

Massaud believes that people are investing more in their bathrooms as a place of wellbeing and respite from our busy 24 hour schedules, and that taps are an important element of this. "Bathrooms are becoming larger in scale, and because we spend more time there and invest more in them, so the scale of the faucet has to follow," Massaud told Dezeen.
"A plastic chair you might change every two years, but more and more ? and especially for faucets ? people will keep their bathroom designs for much longer," he continued.
"You don't change your taps when trends change, so the ambition is to deliver the best quality and it has to look long-lasting."

Each block that makes up the fitting has its edges chamfered to exactly 45 degrees using a diamond-tipped precision-milling machine that can cut accurately to a thousandth of a millimetre.
The specially developed machine is ...