M/Y Aurelia

Aurelia was commissioned by an owner who had spent twenty years aboard charter yachts and knew, with great precision, what he did not want. No feature walls. No back-lit onyx. No statement chandelier in the dining room that would require the table to be arranged around it. The brief, written in a single page, asked for an interior that felt like a well-made house that happened to float.

The main saloon was organised around a pair of four-metre sofas in a performance fabric woven to resemble undyed wool — close enough to the real thing that it reads as entirely natural, durable enough for salt air and wet guests. Flooring throughout the main deck was laid in wide-plank white oak with a wire-brushed finish and no caulked seams, so the floor reads as continuous rather than naval. The dining room seated twelve around a table in bleached oak with a leather inset, lit by a low rectangular fixture in aged brass that was designed for the space rather than sourced from a catalogue.

Each of the five staterooms was differentiated by material rather than colour: the master in linen and pale stone, the two guest cabins in a warmer oak and cotton canvas, the twin cabins in a slightly cooler palette suited to younger guests. The through-line was a consistent use of inset panels — a detail borrowed from early Scandinavian shipbuilding that creates depth on flat surfaces without the weight of applied moulding.