Dressing Room Lined in Leather by Simon Astridge.

Architects: Simon Astridge
Location: Paddington, London
Year: 2012
Photography: Nicholas Worley

British architect Simon Astridge has lined the walls of a walk-through dressing rooms in British Cow-hide leather for a private client. The house in London was fully refurbished with a new upper roof level added, containing a master suite zone. To go from the bedroom to the en-suite and private study, one has to walk through the leather joinery “tunnel”. Simon Astridge Architecture Workshop worked closely with the client and the leather specialist in detailing the joinery. The panels for the sliding doors were based upon the constrained butt size of a British cow from the Cornwall suppliers. The maximum dimension defined the size of the sliding doors and therefore the setting out of the dressing room tunnel and the entire master level.

No handles were fitted to the sliding doors as the architects wanted the material to be authentically worn by the hand over the years as a normal part of the life-cycle. Walking through the dressing room, one is rewarded with a truly phenomenological (is that a word?) experience with the beautiful earthy smell of the leather.

[Images & drawings courtesy of Simon Astridge. Photography by Nicholas Worley.]