How They Pulled It Off: A Mirrored Wall That Lets the Sun In—and Hides a Home Office

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

When the Italian architecture firm Perotta Iberto Architetti (PIA) began working with a client who needed both a home and a home office, they knew they were in for a challenge. "The homeowner had specifically requested a dedicated work-from-home space that was as separate as possible from the rest of the apartment," explains Alessandro Perotta.

PIA and the client, a freelance cultural project manager, worked together to find the perfect property—and when they spotted a 645-square-foot apartment that offered a stunning view of the city, they knew they had found the right place. With early 20th-century architectural elements such as arched wooden windows, original wooden doors, and parts of the original terrazzo flooring still intact, PIA began developing a plan that would allow the space to be modified just enough to meet a modern client’s needs.

The first step was to swap the kitchen and the bathroom. "There was a tiny, totally inadequate bathroom," says Perotta. "We simply swapped the two rooms, slightly shifting the dividing wall between them, to allow for a larger bathroom with a bathtub and a kitchenette in close connection with the living room."

The next step was to build the home office—and the team at PIA quickly realized that if they used mirrored doors to separate the office from the rest of the apartment, they could solve two architectural issues with one simple design.

"Right from the start it occurred to us to take advantage of the blind corner, which also happened to be the widest part of the hallway leading to the various rooms, all of which face south," Perotta says. "We thought that this kind of study space, tucked in a corner, could on one hand support better focus, and on the other, act as a kind of device to bring both the light and the view from the living room into the hallway and entrance."

How they pulled it off: A private home office that draws light without drawing attention 

• The home office design was the anchor point of the renovation, and all other design choices proceeded from the idea of putting a study area behind mirrored doors. "For example, we had to modify the kitchen opposite the study, experimenting with various angles for the open shelving to ensure easy access between them and the closed mirrored doors," Perotta explains.

• The purchase price of the apartment was high enough that the client was obliged to reduce some of the budget originally put toward the renovation. This meant that the PIA team had to think resourcefully as well as creatively. "We simplified design choices for other rooms in order to bring this element to life as originally envisioned," says Perotta. "For instance, using unpainted MDF doors in the kitchen was a cost-saving measure that ended up working well both practically and aesthetically."

• The mirrored door panels are 88 inches in total width and 103 inches in height, with each panel about 16 inches wide. The two outer panels are fixed and support the weight of the inner two. The four center panels fold open like a book, two on each side, and continue to reflect light even when the doors are open.

• The triangular study desk is only 88 inches long and 30 inches deep—just large enough to fit work-from-home essentials like a laptop.

While the home office is an attractive feature of the apartment even when the doors are open, PIA and the client agree that being able to conceal the study area with a mirrored wall is the most important element of the design. "The idea of walking into the home and catching a glimpse of the city reflected in the mirrors is truly delightful," says Perotta—and being able to close up one’s office when the workday is done may be equally satisfying.

Project Credits:

Architect: Perotta Iberto Architetti  / @pia_perottaibertoarchitetti

Photography: Anna Positano

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