Shirley Dan

Head of an architecture and interior design studio specializing in residential design and overseeing projects from the planning stage to management and supervision of execution. In her work, she seeks to combine aesthetics with practice and create harmonious, comfortable, and enveloping homes, a concept that is also clearly expressed in the way she treats the most intimate space in the home.

Ofri Paz | STANNEL

“For me, the bedroom is our private and personal kingdom,” says Dan. This is the space where the home transforms from a shared area into an intimate place, and therefore she seeks to create a calm, natural, and flowing feeling in it, one that allows you to slow down and gradually distance yourself from the noise of the day.

For her, the road there begins softly. Natural fabrics, curtains that move with the light, rugs, and textures that are pleasant to the touch create layers that soften the architecture and give the room an enveloping feeling. Along with materiality, she places great importance on natural light and the way it enters the space and changes throughout the day.

“If I have the option, I will always have a large display case with an exit to the garden or balcony,” she explains. For her, a wide opening is not just a source of light, but an architectural element that expands the boundaries of the room. It brings the view inside, creates depth and allows the outside to become part of the experience of being in the room. The ability to open the display case in the morning and go directly to the garden or balcony gives the room an almost vacation-like quality. Vertical proportions also play a significant role in the design. When the structure of the house allows it, Dan prefers to maintain the full height of the space and expose the roof structure and wooden beams instead of hiding them behind a lowered ceiling. Sometimes she chooses to paint the beams white, so that they maintain their architectural rhythm and texture without weighing down the room.

The combination of a high ceiling, exposed beams, generous openings and soft textiles creates the same feeling she is looking for in a bedroom: an intimate space on the one hand, but open and breathable on the other. There is something about it that reminds one of a boutique hotel, not in the sense of copying hotel language, but in the sense that every detail is designed to make staying in the room an experience. Ultimately, for Dan, the luxury in a bedroom does not stem from the number of items in it. It is found in the space, the light, the materials that are pleasant to touch and the direct connection with the outside, those elements that allow the room to truly become the private kingdom of the person who lives in it.

Dan chose to produce In Arina’s bed of Hollandia, an upholstered bed with a headboard with clean, rounded lines. “The bed fits so well into the spaces I design,” she says. In the room she created for herself, the bed was integrated alongside a decorative wall covered in woodwork and a wooden floor, within a bright, warm envelope. “Everything is bright, warm, and white,” she describes, as the softness of the bed and its natural tones continue the same language and connect with the materiality of the space.

Architect Shirley Dan

Photography | Raisa Varvitskaya

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