Production designer Jon Henson drew on minimalist Japanese architecture to create a house that acts "like a fourth character" for the set of BBC television series The Girl Before.
Written by British author JP Delaney, The Girl Before is a psychological thriller novel set in a fictional one-bedroom house called One Folgate Street in Hampstead, London.
For the TV series, which was created by BBC and HBO Max, the majority of the interior scenes were filmed last spring in a purpose-built set at Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol, while the house's exterior was specially built.
"I wanted it [the house] to feel sometimes like a sanctuary ? calm and safe, almost zen-like ? and then sometimes to feel like a fortress or a prison," Henson told Dezeen. Top: the exterior facade of One Folgate Street. Above: the purpose-built set of The Girl Before
"The brief from the director was that it should be almost like a fourth character," he said. "But I wanted to take that further and create a space which could almost atmospherically change, depending on the scene and what we needed dramatically."
This sentiment echoes Delaney's intentions. In an interview with Dezeen, he explained how he wanted to make the house feel like the protagonist of the novel.
"This is a book about four characters and the strongest character is the house," Delaney said. "It's the most dominant character."
Production designer Jon Henson was inspired by Japanese ar...