Bedroom, Private Client, Berlin

A private bedroom commission in Berlin’s Mitte district, where the brief asked for a room that felt genuinely removed from the city outside, unhurried, considered, and rooted in something older than the building that contains it. The client wanted the Japanese tradition of bringing nature inside not as decoration but as orientation, held in balance with the Scandinavian craft and European joinery that the space quietly demanded. A room that practises stillness rather than performs it.

The mural sets the room’s entire register. A hand-painted cherry blossom tree rises from the floor on the left side of the bed wall, its gnarled trunk rendered in ink-wash tones of grey and brown, branches reaching across the full width of the wall before disappearing beyond the frame. It is not decorative; it is the room’s reason for existing, and every other decision defers to it.

Against this wall sits a bed framed in dark lacquered timber, its headboard a panel of open rattan weave, its craft deliberate and visible. Linen pillows in sand and deep charcoal dress the bed without effort. A large, round, woven jute rug grounds the composition in a circle, and at the foot of the bed, a low upholstered bench in pale bouclé holds a loosely draped throw.

To the left, a ribbed paper globe pendant hangs above a fluted oak drum nightstand carrying a small white ceramic vase and a shallow dish. A full-length leaning mirror in pale timber leans against the wall beside it, catching the mural in its reflection. To the right, a full-height joinery unit in warm oak holds open shelving, closed cabinet doors in matte charcoal, and a floating desk with slim drawers beside it, a Thonet-style cane cantilever chair, its copper frame the room’s single metallic note. The floor throughout is chevron parquet in pale ash, its pattern running beneath the circular rug and continuing beyond it without interruption.