Small Space Solution: The Accordion Door Reconsidered

Belgian architect Arthur Verraes’s family home, a rehabbed wreck in Ghent, is filled with design ideas writ large. But one of its humblest details has been on my mind for months: Verraes sectioned off his garage, powder room, and bedroom with accordion doors—and they look great.

I’ve always associated folding doors with hospitals and 1970s cheapo closets: inelegant and prone to falling off their tracks. But the idea is undeniably intriguing: an easy-to-install partition, more substantial than a curtain and far less of a commitment and a space hog than a door (renters, take note!).

After interrogating Verraes, I did some sleuthing and discovered Dooor, an Italian startup that works with designers like Patricia Urquola and is out to “broaden the aesthetic horizons” of folding doors. Dooor’s custom designs confirmed my suspicion: it’s time to reconsider the accordion as a high-style, space-saving, easily removable option.

Here are eight in situ examples. What do you think?

“You see folding doors in hospitals and in houses from the seventies and eighties, but not often in new projects,” Verraes tells us. “Their advantage over sliding doors is that they don’t require space in or next to the walls to slide the door away. I also find that in terms of acoustics, they seal better than sliding doors. A disadvantage is that even when folded they take up space, so you have to make sure the opening is large enough.” Photograph by Tim Van de Velde, courtesy of Arthur Varraes, Atelier Avondzon.

Dooor is the brainchild of Francesco Mascarucci, whose grandfather founded a folding door company in 1962. Mascarucci used the family know-how to launch his own line that offers “new manufacturing techniques and high-tech cladding materials in a generous choice of textures and colors.” The brand works closely with architects and other design professionals (but is open to collaborating with savvy private customers). It’s doors are “entirely cut to measure and customized.” Photograph by Simone Bossi, courtesy of Studio Wok.

Dooor offers “a vast range of cladding materials” and notes that its partitions can “become an element of great character if clad with decorative fabrics. If clad with matte fabrics or materials similar to the surrounding walls, they blend in and become a subtly elegant echo.” Using different materials on each side is also an option. Photograph by Filippo Ferrarese.

Nutshell history: Sara Spagnuolo of Dooor tells us that the accordion door “made its debut in the 1950s” and was put to use by Gio Ponti and Joe Colombo, among others, “to open up, divide, or screen off an indoor area without losing a sense of unity.” Photograph by Federico Covre.

Dooor works with designers worldwide. For American clients, it has a Dumbo, Brooklyn-based rep, designer Gabriele Negro, who can be reached by email at [email protected].

In the US, there are also many companies that offer more familiar folding doors, including the Accordion Door Store of Portland, OR.

More partitions:

• Sliding Doors and Curtains in an Ensuite Paris Retreat
• Trend Alert: 12 Artful Folding Screens as Decor
• Folding Screens in the Bedroom, Headboard Edition
• Erica Tanov’s “Touch of Hippie” Solution for a Doorless Closet