A Bath for Elle Decoration

Elle Decoration approached us to design a bathroom for a terraced house loft space... Here is what we came up with:

Feix&Merlin believe that bathing can be a religious experience. Washing and cleansing ourselves carries with it all sorts of religious connotations but in our modern lives it’s the process which wakes us up, and baptises us into the working day. It’s the place that re‐invigorates our tired bodies, and also a place of tranquillity, somewhere to find precious time to spend alone in quiet contemplation.

We should be more generous with the space we give up to our bathrooms within the home. It’s the space that greets us first thing in the morning and the one that sends us off last thing at night, and it should be treated with the reverence it deserves.

We are proposing one single large open wet space for the bathroom with a separate shower area housed within a new dormer construction. A super graphic is applied to the walls and ceiling, completely enveloping the space creating a new perspective and the illusion of a visual volume far greater than that of the existing environment. In this case its Bath Abbey (pun intended) but it could be anything from a woodland scene to an American highway, as long as it’s something with a strong perspective that can be scaled so that you feel you could almost walk into it.

We see the new dormer construction as a separate object with solid sides and completely glazed front and roof. This is to be minimally detailed with a hidden recessed frame so that once inside there is a frameless view and a sensation that you are actually showering outside in the open air.

We have shown the sanitary ware sitting against a bespoke piece of furniture finished in white marble to reflect the ecclesiastical atmosphere we have created. This piece of furniture not only hides away the plumbing and waste but
provides integrated storage space and a place to sit or lie down and chat to someone while they are in the bath. White marble is great for bathrooms as it provides a lightness of colour whilst giving a visual texture with the grey veins that run through the natural stone.

A white Lilly shaped water font creates the wash hand basin placed in the middle of the space creating a circulation route around it. The water tap descends down from above and a mirror hangs in the middle of the room offering up reflections images on the walls and ceiling and reflecting daylight to both sides of the room further enhancing the sensation of voluminous space.