Making a spectacle of yourself: bathrooms open up

Text by Peter Smisek
31.03.21

In private homes and hotels alike, bathrooms are increasingly bringing the outside in, providing an unparalleled sense of well-being for the user.

The bathroom suites of the Floris Hotel in Italy by noa* network of architecture offer oblique views across the Alps. Photo: Alex Fliz

We associate bathrooms with privacy, cleanliness, and sometimes the luxury of an hours-long bubble bath with a good novel and a glass of wine. Baths with a view, on the other hand, used to be the reserve of hotels and resorts. It may be a coincidence, but the year that we've all come to appreciate the great outdoors that little bit more has also been the year when architects and homeowners have made baths with a view a definitive mainstay of domestic interiors too.

In Atelier Right Hub's Mymory – Boutique Hotel, glazed compartments provide baths and showers with a view across the rooms and beyond to the surrounding mountains. Photos: Courtesy Right Hub

Outside the city of Hangzhou in eastern China, Atelier Right Hub designed Mymory – Boutique Hotel. Comprising a traditional rural house and a tower-like modern, concrete structure next to it, the hotel contains large suites with glazed partitions separating bathrooms and offering views of the interiors and the landscapes beyond. With large glazed surfaces, dramatically carved voids, and a reflective exterior, the baths with a view are just one element of this stylish and visually captivating hotel complex.

Clad in larch wood and offering baths with a view, the Floris Hotel by noa* network of architecture is the perfect mountain retreat. Photos: Alex Fliz

In northern Italy, noa* network of architecture has designed a hotel that reimagines the bath with a view. Their Floris Hotel consists of a number of house-shaped volumes stacked and staggered on top of one another and raised on stilts. To safeguard the guests' privacy, the architects have created a glazed loggia on the side of each individual suite featuring a free-standing bathtub offering views of the inside as well as oblique views across the Alps.

Despite the muted colour palette in KC Design Studio's House H, the narrow, verdant lightwells bring in a surprising amount of light and create bedrooms and baths with layered views. Photos: Hey! Cheese

It might seem counter-intuitive, but it is even possible to have a bath with a view in a dense urban environment – even in a basement. House H, designed by KC Design Studio in Taipei, is located on the ground floor and basement of an existing apartment building. By creating a small number of precise, narrow, incisions, the architects have created a series of narrow patios. Filled with lush vegetation, these act as light-wells as well as visual screens between the different bedrooms and even their en-suite bathrooms.

StudioAC adds a practical touch to its bath with a view at the Beaconsfield Residence – the space around the bath is covered with white mosaic tiles, while the rest of the bedroom features a wooden floor. Photos: Andrew Snow Photography

In the suburbs of Toronto, StudioAC's Beaconsfield Residence hides its unexpected spatial gymnastics behind a rather ordinary Victorian facade. The open living area with a double-height central space and floating timber volumes leads up to two bedrooms on the first floor. Facing the garden, the master bedroom features a separate bathroom to the side, providing privacy for the owners' daily toilette, while a free-standing bath with a view offers a compelling place to relax and unwind.