Nothing is softer or more flexible than water," the philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, "yet nothing can resist it." So it should come as no surprise that for ISH 2017, a show focused on water- and energy-management products, Kludi GmbH & Co. KG created an H2O-themed exhibit that was as irresistible as an oasis in the Sahara.

Teaming up with Kohlhaas Messebau GmbH & Co. KG, Kludi, a maker of kitchen and bath fittings, evoked watery motifs in its 125-by-43-foot booth with soft, flowing features and product displays purposely spread across it like stepping stones in a river. Forming an illusion of rain over the expanse was a 33-by-15-foot ceiling element, suspended by a truss, from which more than 400 glass raindrops of varying lengths hung in midair, as if frozen during their precipitous fall to the earth below.

Underneath the dangling drizzle, visitors explored the booth's four product-filled areas. In the first three, dozens of fixtures for kitchens and bathrooms were attached to plastered walls painted a stark white. The fourth section comprised two displays jutting out like peninsulas into an ocean. At the "Ameo fountain," for example, a triangle-shaped vessel with soft and rounded corners seemed to float on an expanse of Pacific-blue carpet. Inside the construction, six faucets from the company's luxe Ameo product line awaited guests who could reach in and turn them on, releasing a soothing rush of water that fell into the fountain's reservoir and splashed over a strata of stones. Nearby, a shower fountain, similarly curved and resting on azure carpet, held eight gleaming silver shower heads that flooded the 3-foot-tall basin below. When they'd finished exploring, visitors unwound at an adjacent bar and lounge under a duo of ceiling elements that formed simulated skies made of irregularly shaped sapphire laminate and fluffy clouds of wire mesh. E