Bath to nature

"When nature calls" is our standard summons to go use the facilities. But is nature really calling us, design-wise? What does "bathroom" bring to mind, regarding the materials we see, touch, and clean when another nature calls (mold and mildew)?

That's easy: Tile. Enamel. Iron. Steel. Chrome. Brass. Glass. Granite. Marble. Quartz. Plastics.

All but the last are indeed natural (unless you chemists consider polymers nature-based). And granite and marble do lend natural touches to your routine. But they are so factory-honed they feel more ritzy than natural. These two bathrooms with plants and green views are good starts toward a "bath to nature," but are still too fabricated to truly be.

Here's an even better start, courtesy of Civil Engineering Discoveries: a bathroom assimilating some of the colors and materials of nature to blend with the trees outside of the clerestory window. The bathroom harmonizes with this nature by abstracting its chromatic and sometimes material essentials into its design. Reddish-brown wood is used for the vanity, towel-rack, door-frame and shower-shelf. Green tilework in the shower directly complements the tree-view. The chaotic nature of clouds, leaves and soil are expressed in the wall and floor. In this way the bathroom draws upon Japanese home design tradition of emphasizing the wood frame and the screen surface to simplify it enough to blend it with nature.

These bathrooms push the nature-blend a bit farther, spreading the wood onto the walls and beyond with mounted wood-box shelves, a wood-framed mirror and a lower wood shelf (left), and a plant-accented wood-cased vanity complemented with the rustic stains and veins of quartz wainscoting (right)

 

These bathrooms edge away from the rather ritzy slickness of the previous ones with more rustic wood-plank walls that reflect the organic graininess of wood, as a fine complement to the gray tones, which complement the calming characteristics of the wood with a neutralization of the spaces.

Here's even more of a nature-assimilator: a bathroom that proudly shows off nature's gnarly, knotty nature. The vanity was apparently formed from a twisted tree-limb that was honed with an ax to rough out its rusticity to the max, leaving room at the bottom for storage of a few toiletries. The mirror is presented as an organic globule that boldly defies formality as it reflects the complementary wood post and beam. How'd you like to wake up to this every morning?

This one really roughs it as best as possible to offset the upscale formality of the bowl-sink, the oval egg tub and the back-straightening commode. This was built in 2013 by a Norwegian family as the bathroom for a sustainable off-grid house on Sandhorney Island, North Norway, in the Arctic Circle. That back-to-nature approach is certainly reflected in the hand-hewn post, the workbench-like vanity, and the textured stucco finishes all around, not to mention the green-grown view.

Photo by Cliff, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Frank Lloyd Wright had a similar idea for the baths in the Usonian Houses he designed as back-to-nature, back-to-basics homes for his less well-to-do clients. This bath at the 1941 Pope-Leighey House in Alexandria, Virginia (for which Wright reduced his fee when the construction costs jumped), is also reduced to functional and spatial essentials. But the added touches of red brick, Tidewater red cypress finished in clear wax, and a concrete floor painted in Wright's trademark Cherokee red (radiant-heated by hot water pipes) give the space a warmer, friendlier, more nature-calming experience than the antiseptic, metallic impersonality of Gropius' lavatories. Yet Wright's finishes are still simple enough not to tempt the eye to gawk at the beauty, follow the details-within-details, and detain the bather.

 

Sadly (or happily?), many of today's baths snub the Masters' minimalism to become comfort castles overflowing with enough eye-grabbing aesthetics and body-bounties to make you never want to leave the lav. 

Yet some still want to feel natural, like this one, which flaunts the knots in its pine, the beams in its ceiling, the stones in its stairs and floor (and fireplace!), the wood-finish in its water-jet hot-tub, and the calculated window-view of evergreens and mountain ranges to make your bathing experience seem back to nature — though Mother Nature has fooled you this time by not providing these materials for free like in days of old. For the chandelier gives away the wealth spent on this, as does the gas fireplace that warms your towel-down after you (finally) get out of the tub.

Photo by Don Cochran, courtesy of Holmes, King, Kallquist & Associates

Abraham Lincoln could never dream of this kind of log-cabin luxury, which gives the rich the illusion of roughing it. 

Here the logs are more ornamental than structural and functional, never letting you lose sight of the "natural" wonder of those ringed cross-sections, hatchet-hews and bark-scars as you water-jet yourself soft and clean in the soaking tub, which is simply crafted so as not to distract from the subdued natural effect. 

The variegated brown floor and shower tiles continue the woodsy, cavernous feel into the shower, but in a way that removes you further from Lincoln's struggles for survival, especially when you step into the shower's vast glassed space and turn on the massaging showerheads and steam-jets.

Photo courtesy of plumbingplus.net

Here's an attempt to reconcile Wrightian naturalism with modern functionalism. 

This bath combines the rustically erratic stacked fieldstone of the former (making rock's natural contours your steppingstone to your bath!) with the factory-processed glass block of the latter. 

The conventional floor and wall tile smooths out the composition as a mediator between these nature-vs.-machine polarities while providing a compatible contrast of its own: good old black-and-white.

However, opposites do have commonalities here. The wobbly texture of the glass bricks is simpatico with the rugged roughness of the stone, and the grays of the aluminum and the stones do jibe agreeably. And the common theme of the grayscale throughout the bath is the ultimate unifier here.

Photo courtesy of themetapicture.com

This takes the stone a step further, organically evolving the tub and shower out of existing ground-rock, bringing them back to their tidal-pool and swimming-hole roots. The wood-plank ceiling is a fine curvilinear complement to the contours of the rock-tub, keeping the scene natural and fluid, like the water and the rock it shaped over eons.

Photo courtesy of zillow.com

This bath "rocks" with nature, reframing the shower as the rain and the waterfall that were its origins. The stacked stones evoke nature's erosion of ancient ruins. The nature views (through one-way glass, hopefully) bring the real thing into the picture, so "it's like taking a shower in Ireland," as Irish Spring Soap jigged on the radio in the '70s.

Photo courtesy of homesdir.net

Totally dissolving its picture window, this one brings us one step closer to nature, the way it "throws open its walls like curtains to admit a plenitude of fresh air, daylight and sunshine" to the point of giving the bather the ultimate "public bath," hence a risk of embarrassment upon emerging from the tub should hunters or horseback riders happen to approach from afar. 

The white porcelain bowl-tub theme repeats itself admirably as twin bowl-sinks designed to appear detached. The knotty wood vanity brings more nature inside, while the mirror-doors on the medicine cabinets expand the effect of the box-burst into "light, space and greenery" of nature beyond the galley confines of the bath.

The result is a balanced compromise between nature and manufacture, neither one upstaging the other.

But when nature really calls and you really want a "bath to nature," take this nature connection a giant leap further and go soak in your outdoor hot tub...

...or jump in your backyard swimming pool! (Hey, it's summer, right?)

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Beauty in economy

This LinkedIn post from Civil Engineering Discoveries is the image of beauty in economy. This bathroom's restraint of space, finishes and fixtures radiates the cleanliness one gets from a good shower, shampoo and shave without hogging space from other rooms or dressing up in needless knickknacks.

The cantilevered sink, shelf and mirror are mounted on the shower's side, consolidating all cleansing stations and simplifying the plumbing. Similarly, the commode is right beside the shower, and the shower's off-the-floor step-in design has no threshold to trip on. This turns all daily necessities into one-stop shopping, hastening your toilet to help you get going in the morning.

Which is complemented—and expressed—by simplicity of design and décor. The glass door's black border exemplifies the clean lines of Mondrian modernism. The lighting around the simple square mirror nicely contrasts the black with white while complementing the white sink. The woodgrain of the vanity and shelf offset the shower door's industrial geometry with organic rustic richness, while the black metal faucet complements the door-frame. The shower's textured tilework suggests a showerhead's waterfall cascade in a way that isn't sculpturally pretentious but is still soothing.

This is living proof that you don't need a bathroom like a palace to have something luxurious to step into, steam up in and stride out of for your daily routine...unless, of course, you seek a soak in a tub. 

But, aside from hating baths as a kid, I frankly find tub-bathing unnecessary and time-consuming, especially when it makes you not want to leave the warmth of the water, the caress of the jets, the scent of the soap, the balm of the bath oil, the sudsy softness of the Mr. Bubble, and whatever other luxuries surround you. For that is how the tub usurps your valuable time as much as the square footage it requires robs the rest of your home of valuable space—and ups your renovation, installation, plumbing and water-and-sewer expenses in the process. 

So a douche from a shower (that is, a tightly vertical one-person one kept to the spatial limits of one showerhead, not a multi-headed haven with the elbow-room of a walk-in closet, like this stall here) does the trick for personal sanitation, spatial salvation, and time management in the morning. That should make the first image you saw in this post a model for economical yet elegant bath design.

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The Wright choices

Frank Lloyd Wright's Herbert Jacobs House (1936), Madison, Wisconsin.
Photo by James Steakley, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Frank Lloyd Wright's 150th birthday evokes fond memories of the Wrightian designs of my late father, Leslie Larson. A devotee of Wright since corresponding with his studio as a boy growing up in Superior, Wisconsin, he blended the master's essentials—organic design, natural materials, earth-hugging horizontality, fluid space—with Japanese simplicity and Scandinavian earthiness to create homey havens of back-to-nature, back-to-basics living.
 

Jocqueen (Carlson House, 1960), Niantic, East Lyme, Connecticut, designed by Leslie Larson. Courtesy of Google Maps.

Wright's 1936 Herbert Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin (above), likely inspired this one-story dwelling my father designed in 1960 as a weekend/summer home for a renowned psychiatrist in Niantic, East Lyme, Connecticut. The clients were my godparents, the late Eric T. Carlson, M.D., founder of the DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, and his wife, Jean.
 

Formally christened Jocqueen—which means 'house' in the extinct Mohegan-Pequot dialect of Algonquian Native Americans who once lived in this area—the Carlson House does full justice to its nature-base, Indian-style and Wrightian-style. 

Photo by Corey Coyle, courtesy of Panoramio and Wikimedia Commons.

Like the Jacobs House (above), the horizontal layout of the Carlson House (below) hugs its terrain, its all-wood construction honors the trees that built it, its solid front walls allow privacy from the street, and the cantilevered eaves protect them from excessive weathering. 

Photos courtesy of Google Maps.

Also, the L-shape plan allows each house a side location on its plot, hence generous yard/lawn space. And each garage is handily on the left for immediate entry from the street (which the Carlson House ended as a cul-de-sac at the time) and smoothness of transition from car to home.

There are differences, however. The Carlson House is further set back behind an all-gravel frontage with sparsely planted shrubbery and a running stone-ledge. Inspired by Japanese sand, gravel and rock gardens, this landscape also takes cues from the sand, rocks and reeds of Black Point Beach down the road (an enticement for the Carlsons' daughter Karen to head for the dunes, perhaps). 

Furthermore, the wall planks are vertical, unifying them with the upward trees from which they came, as a tribute to their natural origins. And the house's tripartite arrangement articulates the separate functions of each of the parts—the garage/workshop on the left, the bed/bath/kitchen section in the center, the semi-autonomous living-dining room at right—a principle of modern architecture Wright practiced often. But their unified composition guides our eyes smoothly across all three parts, denoting the fluid interconnection and ease of transition among them inside.

Preparing us for this is the boardwalk leading us from the garage along the front of the center section (paralleling the hallway inside) and then angling leftward to the set-back entrance. The eave protects us from the elements all along the way, easing the transition from outside to inside, in terms of shelter from the storm as well as continuity of nature.

Further smoothing our path from out to in is another Wright touch: parallel patterning to unify different parts of a house. Horizontal bars on the door and chimney are level with each other, and vertical windows abut door and chimney symmetrically. This begins the balance and order we come home to.
 

Photos courtesy of CTMLS, Inc., and Zillow.com.

And we do. Right of the entry is the spacious living-dining room, where the gabled roof dramatizes the space with a cathedral soar. It also elevates the living-room window- wall, bringing nature more fully into the house. Built-in shelves display books and objets d'art with lithe grace, exposing the cork- paneled walls to further unify us with nature.

Contrasting the void of the window-wall is the solid of the living-room wall, allowing privacy while honoring nature with grasscloth. The knotty-pine ceiling complements the woods outside the window-wall. The exposed-brick fireplace honors the earth that was its origin. The vertical window dissolves the dark corner in a Wrightian vein.
 

The kitchen's galley narrowness epitomizes Wright's view of its proper use: to do what's needed and get out of there, not to linger the way 'eat-in' kitchens tempt us to do. This one is placed to fulfill that function fully. It begins at the dining room, conveniently runs its appliances and cabinetry along an L-counter, and ends at the hallway to the bath and bedrooms. 

This strategic arrangement makes it easy for us to eat, clean up, and go get ready to go to work in the morning or to go to bed at night. Thoughtful lighting is provided for each of these occasions: a skylight for breakfast, and a row of screen-filtered warm incandescent lighting for dinner.
 

Photo by James Steakley, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Paralleling the galley kitchen—literally and figuratively—is the hallway, which is similar to the one in the Jacobs House, pictured here. Both are purely functional spaces designed to get us from Point A to Point B, kept relatively dark so as not to tempt us to loiter in the halls.

The Carlson House hallway is also well placed to run straight from the space between the living and dining areas past the kitchen to the cork-paneled bath—where a skylit tub/shower gives us a sunbath, too—and on to the master bedroom at left and Karen's room at right. 

The master bedroom is minimally lit by corner-windows flanking the king-size bed area, allowing for maximum sleep. Karen's room is small but well-economized spatially: sliding- door closets along one wall, a makeup vanity below the window, built-in bunkbeds in the dark corner for optimum sleep-tight efficiency.

Photo courtesy of CTMLS, Inc., and Zillow.com.

The French doors in the living-room window-wall and in-between the dining room and kitchen open out to a wraparound deck that runs along and steps down to a spacious back yard, where I fondly remember pine-tree aromas augmenting the naturalism of the woodwork. Rugged boulders add a Japanese mystique to the yard, where light and shadow are as well-balanced as inside. This makes Jocqueen even more exemplary of the "natural house" my father created from Frank Lloyd Wright's vision for better living.

Wheatledge (Martha & Julius Larson House, late 1950s), Northfield, Minnesota. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.

Here's another "natural house" he designed for his parents in Northfield, Minnesota, in the late 1950s, several years after he graduated from St. Olaf College. Named Wheatledge, it follows Wright's use of rugged flat stones that are laid to emulate naturally stratified stone for solid, self-sustaining walls, in homage to my grandfather's masonry profession. The stone extends inside as exposed walls and a fireplace to unify the occupants most fully with nature, aided by the woodsmoke from a roaring fire and, of course, the house's forested setback from the street.  

Like Jocqueen, Wheatledge is exemplary of two Wrightian principles: (1) inward-oriented design for optimum privacy and a feeling of retreat into nature from urban hustle-and-bustle, and (2) one-story configuration, which honors the earth with its horizontality and made it convenient for my grandparents and godparents to get around inside as they got older. Low stone knee-walls planted with perennials, groundcover and many kinds of trees complete the effect of peaceful nature sheltering Wheatledge.

Rest in peace, Dad, reassured you made the Wright choices for my godparents and grandparents. Happy Father's Day.

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