Given the trend of inhabiting smaller, more modest homes, a proper bathtub is increasingly a rarity if not an outright luxury. But for those individuals who truly value a good soak, these projects show just how a little creativity can go a long way toward having your personal space and bathing in it, too.
Haffenden House by PARA Project
Inspired by Gianni Pettena’s 1972 Ice House, the A+Award-winning Haffenden House is a writing studio designed for two poets. In a residential neighborhood in Syracuse, the white cuboid is flanked by two existing suburban homes. The ground level holds a garage and breezeway, ascending to the brilliantly integrated library, writing, and bathing space. Silicon fabric skin allows for the internal space to fill with natural light, while the rear is covered with hung fabric to offer privacy for nighttime bathers.
Edmund – Volkshotel Amsterdam by Jos Blom
‘Edmund’ is one of nine special rooms at the Volkshotel in Amsterdam. Jos Blom and Jasper Eustace collaborated to design several objects of wood and rubber clustered together into an adult playhouse. As such, all the necessities of a hotel room — bath, shower, sink, bed, closet, and so on — are clustered together in a giant jigsaw-like all-in-one unit that looks like a snow-capped mountain. The ‘pinnacle bathtub’ is located atop the small flight of stairs, adjacent to the small garden of cacti and succulents. And if you’re afraid of heights, there is a waterfall shower just below the tub.
Jo Rin Hun by IROJE KHM Architects
This project based in Seoul, Korea, is a feat of spatial allocation and cost management: using cheap materials like concrete and simple design solutions like making the small space feel large by cleverly and dramatically arranging the location of different purpose rooms within a home. Perhaps the most interesting (and voyeuristic) rationing of space is the liberated bathtub enclosed in a glass cuboid, which is situated near the bed and not far from the almost floor-length glass windows.
The Dune House by Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects
The Dune House is the first non-Scandinavian project for the Norwegian firm, so they choose to feature a gabled roof, which they felt was particularly ‘English.’ Inside the seaside dwelling in Thorpeness, United Kingdom, is a bathtub in each of the four bedrooms upstairs (with windows carefully positioned so that one can lie in warm water and take in views of the North Sea and surrounding meadows without being seen). Of course, separate shower and toilet facilities are attached to each room.
Tricycle House by People’s Architecture Office
In China, private land ownership does not exist (residents lease land from the government). Therefore, the Tricycle House is an imaginative solution for a sustainable and affordable single family housing. The portable house can open up to the outside and expand inside like an accordion, with the option of connecting to other Tricycle houses. Entire facilities are included in the house — a sink, stove, and bathtub that can collapse into the front wall of the house — along with furniture that can transform from a bed to a dining table and to a countertop.
© KIM Jae Kyeong
9X9 EXPERIMENTAL HOUSE by studio archiholic
Inspired by Louis Kahn’s 1955 Trenton Bath House, this house began as a geometric plane with a system of nine partitions. The configuration creates a mandala-like shape, ignoring the principles of universal design programs, devising an arrangement can meet the needs of individual residents. Temporary and permanent divisions of space are employed to develop a distinctly personal dwelling. A single unit is made up of three primary components: a furniture courtyard, a variable zone, and an internal courtyard. One of the most fascinating partitions of space is the outside space that intertwines with the inside spaces between glass: in-between places of glass and light filtering through the transparent walls. The wooden bathtub is ambiguously located in the garden.