One of my greatest successes with Spatial Flow involved creating and metamorphosing my daughter's living and play area from the time of her birth through her 10th birthday. I consider this to have been a magnum opus in that it was a decade in the making and remaking, and it really kept me on my toes.
Whether you have a child or simply recall being a child, you know that the developmental stages through which a human moves in her first ten years of life are mind-bogglingly complex. The challenge in creating a space that evolves dynamically over a ten-year period of a child's life is Herculean. It involves the ability to predict and adapt quickly (as in, immediately) to a game-changing shift in behavior (like, oh, say, going from not walking to walking in the span of 24 hours). Additionally, I was challenged by the fact that I lived in a completely open, 2700sf loft apartment with 14' ceilings and two entire walls of 9' windows.
I approached this challenge by creating a space inside my loft that allowed for a darkened, partitioned area where my child could sleep during the day but that didn't darken the entire studio whose natural light compelled me to live there in the first place. Rather than build a room with hard walls to cordon off her sleeping area, I carved out a space using textiles and soft shapes. Duck canvas curtains framed the semicircular periphery of the space, and sheer, pattered curtains softened the inside wall to give the area a nook-like feel. I mounted two, giant green leaf canopies from IKEA to the walls to bring the 14' ceiling down to a cozier height. When the curtains were drawn, the interior of the space formed a perfect cocoon, and when the curtains were opened, they created a reveal like one experiences when the curtain opens at the theater. We would later refer to this area as "the Puppet Show."
Initially, her crib went inside this area. But when it turned out that the cat was the only one who ever slept in the crib, I put a futon on the floor where she was able to nap comfortably well into her toddler years. Eventually, when she was interested in a "proper" bed, I added a half of a round bed from IKEA and two small side tables with reading lamps on them to complete her lair. This area endured as a play space, a reading area, and a sleeping area for many years thereafter.
Roën's room has been the object of many a Pinterest pin since it was featured on the Apartment Therapy website (you can find the article (with photos) here).