TECE TECEdrainway (2026): shower drain engineered to disappear — iF Gold Award

TECE, the German sanitary-engineering company, used the arrival of floor-level showers as a chance to rethink the one fitting those showers made impossible to hide: the drain. Its answer, TECEdrainway, is a new generation of linear drainage designed for the wall-to-floor transition, with an ultra-slim profile that 'blends almost invisibly into the shower area' and, in the company's words, opens new creative freedom in bathroom architecture.

The execution pairs surface design with hydrodynamics. The channel comes in four brushed PVD finishes — black, bronze, brass and stainless steel — so it can be matched tone-on-tone or used as a deliberate contrast, and it installs flexibly: the drain position is independent of the wastewater connection, and the 110 cm and 160 cm lengths can be cut flush to the niche. Inside, vortex-impulse geometry and an integrated 3D gradient use the water flow itself to drive drainage and create a self-cleaning effect, so the maintenance chore that usually forces a visible design disappears.

At the iF DESIGN AWARD 2026 the jury gave TECEdrainway the highest award: one of only 75 Gold winners chosen from more than 10,000 entries across 68 countries. The jury statement praised exactly this inversion — 'an extremely discreet and elegant surface design… the function disappears from view, while the performance remains.' The same cycle also gave TECE's TECEneo shower toilet a regular iF DESIGN AWARD, putting two bathroom products from one company on the year's winner list.