The Onion Suite

A corner suite on the fourth floor, with windows on two sides and a layout that ignores most of the usual rules. There are no internal doors. There are, instead, three full-height linen curtains, each in a different weight, each on its own brass track, that divide the space into a bedroom (innermost), a bath (middle), and a living room with sofa, desk, and dining table for four (outermost).

You can pull all three and have an apartment. You can pull two and have a suite. You can pull one and have a very generous studio. We have watched guests develop strong opinions about the right configuration within an hour of arriving.

The three curtains, in order

1. Bone-coloured loose-weave Belgian linen. Light passes through. Sound does not, much.
2. Oxblood heavy linen blend, blackout-lined. Opaque. The serious curtain.
3. Unbleached canvas, on a brass rod with rings the size of a five-Euro coin. This one is for the door, and for the moment you don't want to deal with the corridor.

Materials

• Bauwerk lime plaster walls
• Hand-poured terrazzo bath floor with brass dividers (made on site)
• Hand-knotted Persian Senneh rug from Galerie Sailer, Munich
• Custom oak dining table by Tischlerei Mehring, seats four (six in a pinch)

Technology

• Wired 1 Gbps drop at the desk + a second drop at the dining table
• Wi-Fi 6E with private SSID by default
• Genelec 4030C in the living area, a second pair in the bedroom, both on Sonos for cross-room sync
• Marshall portable speaker on the windowsill for the balcony, which the suite does not actually have

A note for the literal-minded

The room is not, in fact, structured around the Tor network. The reference is to anything with layers — anything that gets more itself the further in you go. Onions, hierarchies, lasagne. Take what you need from it.