Architect's Toolbox: A Room Inside a Room

Architects and designers occasionally create a room within a room to reduce the scale and supply a more intimate environment — nesting a space within a space, a little like Shaker nesting boxes along with Russian matryoshka dolls.

The best example of is St. Peter’s baldachin at the Vatican. This Bernini’s sculptural room sits inside the great space of the cathedral, breaking the vastness of the space while providing the stage for religious pursuits. Open on all sides and coated, the baldachin’s four roof and columns define a most intimate and sacred of spaces.

So next time you get under the covers of your own four-poster bed or take part in a dialogue in an inglenook from the fire, do not forget that you’re enjoying the kind of space architects are creating for centuries.

Dara Rosenfeld Design

The most common type of room within a room is your four-poster bed. This works in a room with tall ceiling. And the bed frame’s architectural treatment here suggests this is a building within a building, not just a room within a room.

Gne architecture

A four-poster bed can be a very simple and modern design and still create an intimate space in a huge room.

BROWN DAVIS INTERIORS, INC..

A modern interpretation of this idea has the bed in a room defined by absolute fabric hanging from a ceiling that is raised.

Philpotts Interiors

Not limited to Western design, the posts and”ceilings” of traditional Chinese beds create that room-within-a-room quality.

Janell Beals – House of Fifty

A massive living area can be enriched with a smaller room inside. Though the piano sits in the larger volume distance, columns along with a change in ceiling height create a more intimate conversation area.

Using a screen of columns at the side of a room generates a romantic place to see while maintaining connection to the larger room.

Dwell Design Studio

Utilizing up the step and seating structure for spatial separation — along with also the fireplace as a focal point — that inglenook is a room inside the larger context of chambers around it.

Garret Cord Werner Architects & Interior Designers

Not just an approach for living rooms and bedrooms, the idea of a room within a room may be utilised in bathrooms to create a special spot to shower or bathe.

JSL Exteriors Landscape Design/Build

A room within a room isn’t just for the interior. Some very simple lattice screening and greenery makes for a wonderfully intimate and restful way station in the excellent outdoors.

More: Homes With Houses of Their
How to Produce a Nest at Home
Creating Nests in Unexpected Places

See related