This project, in a tiny space of 30 sq.m., is designed as a weekday residence for a textile designer. It takes its inspiration from Morning Toilet, a painting by Dutch master, Jan Steen. This shows a young woman emerging from a curtained bed, almost a room within the larger room.

Within the project, pieces of inhabited furniture introduce a domestic programme whilst maintaining the feeling of a single space and allowing light to penetrate into the deep plan. Two compact and intricate furniture pieces were designed. One contains storage and a bed space, behind a sliding upholstered screen. The second piece is a service unit that forms a wet shower room and a small kitchen. Beyond this the space is minimally treated, the existing brick walls are painted, the timber floors are sanded and new windows are fitted.

This strategy allowed us to fabricate off site, the furniture pieces arriving in flat pack form for rapid on site assembly achieved a high level of control and quality of finish on a low budget project. The project whilst very modest, recalls recurring themes for us. It is concerned with issues of scale, in this case furniture at the scale of room, and temporality, here understood as transformation in response to inhabitation.