I. Introduction.
After a liquid world

Postmodernity brought the end of the 'absolute' category. We were postmodern because we had embraced perspectivism—the opposite of absolute is not relative but contingent, contrary to popular belief: truth depends on the framework from which it is viewed. Different frameworks allow for different truths. A new metaphysical notion fueled by the narrowing, the shrinking of the world resulting from globalization. It was the late 1990s. Everything was closer; never before had distances been covered in less time, and any corner of the world was almost immediately accessible. The speed of transport and communications had accelerated. Other cultures, other points of view, had ceased to be 'other' to come closer and touch our intimacy. The Other, traditionally an absolute and insurmountable barrier between oneself and those others with whom one shares the world, had begun to dissolve. Even that other dwelling at the antipodes was accessible. So much so that this revolution was reflected in our daily lives. Multiculturalism is perhaps its best example. Who doesn’t remember their first purchase of jeans? Who hasn’t eaten in a Mexican restaurant and dined in an Indian one on the same day? Who hasn’t seen a Korean film? What was traditionally inaccessible had become everyday.

But that rapid and accelerating revolution did not end there. After demolishing the absolute as an insurmountable barrier, the liquidity of the world appeared. As if a dam had overflowed and its contents had covered the entire planet, a fluid wave swept away the solidity of social institutions that had been perceived as absolute until then. Non-negotiable, immutable. Society was no longer dependent on rootedness or tradition but on variability, fluidity. It was the early 21st century, and the world had become liquid, as noted by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. If postmodernity had been sustained by the speed of transportation, liquidity was driven by the immediacy and closeness fostered by the digital revolution, where time had collapsed into the present moment and space into an instantly accessible whole. That 'I want it all' that Queen sang at the end of the last century had become a reality thanks to the internet.

But development has not stopped there. And, in a way, it's logical that it hasn't: the fluid can never be static; it can't be. Movement has led to a new paradigm that allows us to understand and act in the world, and it's that when everything moves, and today everything does move, and it does so at the same speed, communication technologies have democratized immediacy and proximity—nothing moves. The coordinated movement of everything at the same speed is indistinguishable from stillness, from a solidity we have left behind and which negates movement and thus the constitutive fluidity of the world.

Today, we can say we live in the era of acceleration.

II. Aesthetic Concept.
The aesthetics of acceleration

If everything moves at the same speed, nothing moves. And yet, today everything moves.

How is it possible, we ask ourselves? Because the differential factor is no longer speed but acceleration. Advances in transport and communication technologies that fostered the liquidity of the world have been surpassed by the development and innovation of information technologies, allowing for increasing accelerations as their impact grows through implementation in production, storage, and distribution processes. The combination of technology and process design, perhaps the two areas that have developed most in the last two decades, has made it possible to overcome the temporal limits that immediacy seemed to impose.

How is it possible, we ask again. What is faster than immediacy? The answer lies in anticipation. Or, in other words, in making something happen before it happens. This is where acceleration comes into play. The ability to foresee drives the acceleration of the response. If one predicts what will happen, they can anticipate the response, and this can be done with increasing acceleration.

Accelerated movement is also always dialectical. What does this mean? Like speed, if everything accelerates at the same rate, it ceases to be acceleration. If everything accelerates at the same speed, nothing accelerates. But more importantly, acceleration, unlike speed, also acts as a driver to reach even greater acceleration.

That is why today everything moves at an accelerated pace.

This axiom is fundamental to understanding QueEasy, a bathroom purchasing process designed to anticipate solutions for the different moments of the buyer's journey.

Anthropological Concept.
The functionality of the physical-digital object

The bathroom is the temple of intimacy. The space where hygiene occurs, where we care for ourselves, preparing to present ourselves to both ourselves and others. It is the place where one lays the foundations of self in relation to others and the world. In Hegelian terms—perhaps the philosopher who best described the relations between the Self and the Other—the bathroom is where the foundations of subjectivity (the expression of oneself to oneself) are established. However, following this German thinker, that subjectivity is only recognized if affirmed by others. One recognizes oneself through the recognition of others. This is what he called the dialectic of intersubjectivity—the friction, exchange, and negotiation between my perception of myself and how others perceive me, that Other, as it is referred to by thinkers. Subjectivity is never fully fixed because it always depends on the feedback we receive from our presentation to others. Personal identity is fluid once again. Thus, the bathroom takes on phenomenal anthropological significance.

However, the bathroom is also a dialectical space. Almost none of us—though there may be exceptions—have built our own bathrooms or manufactured each of their components. We all rely on others for this. Numerous practices and professions, from ceramicists to masons to electricians, contribute to building a bathroom, establishing a dialectic between the uses of the bathroom and the solutions each professional proposes. The construction of a bathroom is subject to the same friction, exchanges, and negotiations that characterize intersubjectivity. Hence, it is also a complex process. This is where the anthropological significance of QueEasy lies.

Why? Because QueEasy is a purchasing process designed to facilitate decisions in creating the desired bathroom, that space where one’s presentation to others is grounded, anticipating both these uses and the solutions the industry offers.

This functional vision takes form in a physical-digital object, that is, a physical sales space and process that responds to digital logic driven by information technology. It is designed to ease the professional-user dialectic by transferring the concept of usability from screens to a physical display, achieving a seamless online-offline purchasing experience.

Social Concept.
The logic of fluidity

Although it may seem otherwise, even fluidity has its logic. From chaos, understood as absolute disorder in the mid-20th century, we arrived at chaos theory, the mathematical response to the apparent lack of logic in fluid forms. Concepts such as attractors, non-linearity, and exponential divergence have formalized many of the shapes of randomness. This framework better illuminates the social concept of QueEasy, based on respect for the user, society, and the environment. Respect acts as the core of this triple balance between the person, the environment, and the community to which they belong, establishing a validating logic for the brand's proposal. Yes, the world is fluid, but respect is what allows us to navigate it.

Why respect? Because it is through respect for the user that they can understand and, therefore, meet their expectations and needs, including economic ones. Because respect for the environment allows them to reconcile the best offerings with the needs of the environment. And because by respecting the community in which the user resides, higher and better levels of coexistence can be achieved.

How is respect applied in this triple balance?

Democratizing commitment. Given the anthropological significance of the bathroom as a place that solidifies one’s presentation to others, a fundamental act in the development of self-identity, QueEasy promotes universal access to its services. This means an economic commitment, both to the buyer and suppliers, to ensure they have a bathroom that best suits their tastes and needs. But beyond that, this access has been designed to be a commitment to functionality, efficiency, and convenience with a single goal: to anticipate all possible problems that may arise in purchasing a bathroom and to offer top-quality solutions tailored to each user’s needs and expectations.

Community commitment. We all inhabit a place we share with others who also live there. Following Hegel, this place is a space of recognition, where intersubjectivity occurs, an essential process in constructing personal identity, as we have seen. Therefore, it is a space worthy of respect. This is why all QueEasy stores are designed to serve as community spaces, capable of adapting to countless social activities depending on demand.

Sustainable commitment. As has become clear, we live in a fluid, liquid world where the concept of 'absolute' has been surpassed by the advent of perspectivism. However, for these perspectives to be possible, a necessary requirement must be met: the survival of the planet and the beings that inhabit it. Without the planet and its inhabitants, no perspective is possible.

With this goal in mind, QueEasy is proud to be the first, and currently the only, store with a zero-carbon footprint in Spain. This pinnacle achievement represents the brand’s third commitment in its triple balance: respect for the environment. It is an example that, hopefully, will soon become the standard in the retail industry.

These three commitments form, in their view, a dialectic of three terms, where advances in one direction drive progress in the others, raising the standard of respect to ever-greater heights. Therefore, QueEasy spaces have been designed as evolving spaces open to future innovations.

Corollary.
Honoring water

This triple balance—respect for the user, the community, and the environment—would not be possible without the brand’s vision: Honoring water. Water is undoubtedly the driving substance of all processes in the bathroom, and as we know, it is a scarce resource facing multiple threats. Since we are nothing without water, we and all other beings on the planet could not survive without it. Water is an object of utmost respect.

This is QueEasy’s way of grounding respect for each component of that triple balance. And beyond that, of contributing to the permanence of this liquid world in which we live.