Brooklyn, New York Residential, Renovation 60 SF 2020
The modern bathroom’s evolution is shaped largely as a response to infectious disease. This technology-intensive space is an integral component of the contemporary human habitat, and a strange union of utility and intimacy. In addition to its central role in human health and hygiene, the bathroom is often the only space in which one has the opportunity to be alone on any given day. With this in mind, the Covid-19 pandemic has refocused our attention on both the psychological and corporeal potentials of the bathroom, a heightened intimacy sought through rituals of self-care.
In this instantiation of the bathroom, a low, dark stone datum organizes the room as macro-tub: the container for holding water and its corresponding vascular system. The floor is free and wet. Tile is organized into an anti-pattern that undermines the apparent solidity of the material. It instead suggests a textile, alluding to a Victorian predilection for bathrooms outfitted in wood, rugs and other absorptive finishes to mask their true function. Within this low basin spring the apparatuses of water delivery, control and removal: toilet, bidet, lavatory, and bath. Rising toward the ceiling, each surface breaks the stone down into finer and finer grains: slate tile gives way to chunky terrazzo before resolving into the fines of plaster.
Photography: Daniel Terna
Quarantine Latrine
Brooklyn, New York Residential, Renovation 60 SF 2020
The modern bathroom’s evolution is shaped largely as a response to infectious disease. This technology-intensive space is an integral component of the contemporary human habitat, and a strange union of utility and intimacy. In addition to its central role in human health and hygiene, the bathroom is often the only space in which one has the opportunity to be alone on any given day. With this in mind, the Covid-19 pandemic has refocused our attention on both the psychological and corporeal potentials of the bathroom, a heightened intimacy sought through rituals of self-care.
In this instantiation of the bathroom, a low, dark stone datum organizes the room as macro-tub: the container for holding water and its corresponding vascular system. The floor is free and wet. Tile is organized into an anti-pattern that undermines the apparent solidity of the material. It instead suggests a textile, alluding to a Victorian predilection for bathrooms outfitted in wood, rugs and other absorptive finishes to mask their true function. Within this low basin spring the apparatuses of water delivery, control and removal: toilet, bidet, lavatory, and bath. Rising toward the ceiling, each surface breaks the stone down into finer and finer grains: slate tile gives way to chunky terrazzo before resolving into the fines of plaster.
