Most
yachts have way too
many hinged doors. Usable floorspace is substantially reduced to
accommodate the swing-arc of each door. Doors rattle in rough
seas and doorknobs can bruise a passenger's hip when bumped.
Closed doors inhibit ventilation. Open doors obstruct
passageways. In this early conceptual floorplan of SEDATION 4, the abundance of
swinging doors is obvious. Each bedroom had a 24" wide
door. Each enclosed head had a 20" wide door. All closets
had doors. A privacy door was even planned at the entrance to the
master suite. What was I thinking?!
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two private
suites, albeit rather commodious for a vessel of her size, so privacy
is inherent since each suite occupies a separate hull. In this
iteration, two 18" doors remained on each outboard hanging closet but
these were subsequently changed to sliding mirrored panels.
Pocket (sliding) doors were designed for the heads in this second
generation design and bedroom doors were eliminated completely.
My only justifiable application of a door is the soundproof Machinery
Room entry. |
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Pocket
doors are very practical but traditional implementations are rather
heavy, complex and increase effective wall thickness. I borrowed
a design feature of public restroom's toilet stalls and designed a
large air gap at the top and bottom of each sliding panel. This
enhances
ventilation significantly and reduces door weight. The tinted
Lucite® panels are attached to heavy-duty drawer slides which are
fastened to the inner surface of each heads' longitudinal wall.
The slides are less than 3/8" thick so increased effective wall
thickness is minimal. When the heads are not in use, the doors
are slid into the open position. The light and ventilation from
the heads' portholes, now, contribute to the vessel's overall
comfort. Note the dual sliding doors on the closets which also
increase effective floorspace. I decided to keep the full-length
mirrored doors on the forward closets since these may be swung open for
viewing from the queen size berths ;}
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Privacy
within each hull is obtained by staggering bulkheads and doorways to
establish a labyrinth. Line-of-sight is obstructed by these
staggered features. In this snapshot, looking forward from inside
the machinery room, light from the guest stateroom is barely
visible. Once the machinery room door is installed, this
line-of-sight will be eliminated. The shower wall, just forward
of the stairway, provides privacy for the bathroom and the head's aft
wall screens the stateroom's dressing area.
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