Previous pages: The owners of
this new home asked architect
Christopher Mercier for a
ground floor master suite that
was comfortable without being
expansive, preferring instead to
allocate more space to the kitchen on
the other side of the mirror wall.
Above: Light streams into the
bathroom through a clerestory
window above the tub.
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When it comes to bathroom design, there’s
no one approach that suits all. Some people
want their bathroom totally separate to the bed-
room, while others want the two rooms opened
up. Some want a dark and moody room, others
want it light and bright. And do you have two
basins on one vanity, or two separate vanities?
Architect Christopher Mercier says that
because of such issues, his bathroom designs
are always an individual response to how the
homeowners want to live in their new home.
For this home, the owners’ principal request
was for their master suite to be on the ground
floor of the two-storey house Mercier was
designing for them.
“They wanted a two-storey home for resale
value, and also to have space for their children
to come and stay – but, as an older couple, they
didn’t want to have to keep going upstairs all the
time,” he say s. “So the aim was to design a two-
storey house that can operate as if it’s one storey.”
This was achieved by splitting the house
down the middle with a large skylight, giving
views throughout the upper floor to the ground
floor below, and making the upper floor feel
much like a loft space.