Architect: Françoise Bollack of Françoise Bollack Architects
Location: Chelsea — New York, New York
Françoise Bollack Architects made the most of a bizarre space — a tiny top-floor loft with 3 levels and roof access. The design opens up the bulk of the interior and optimizes the space with smartly placed storage…
This loft apartment located in a late 19th century row house presents an interesting challenge: how to recover the graceful proportions of the living room while taking advantage of the possibilities offered by an earlier alteration which had inserted intermediate levels in the building's original high-ceiling spaces. Our design reconfigures the apartment's three levels to take advantage of natural light and the south views to the owners' landscaped deck outside. The apartment is outfitted like the interior of a boat: the stair doubles up as a storage element, the mezzanine railing is a bookcase, there are storage bins within the floor structure, every inch is used throughout. The resulting spaces flow into each other and we made extensive use of computer walkthroughs during the design process to let the Owners see what their home would be.
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Images: Françoise Bollack Architects
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Great place! I like the look of the painted white brick FP and the unfinished brick on the adjacent walls and down the stairs.
Also, great built-in book shelves and green space.
yes the brick and the white fireplace are so nice and the wood selected is perfect making this a very warm space..having a rail in the living area would of closed off the space but not having one would make me nervous. I guess no pets or kids allowed here and have your guest sign a release.
Full house tour, please!!!
This is awesome!
Wow. How tall is the building this is in? They've made an elegant oasis out of something others would resign to as a cramped attic.
Beautiful place. I'm clumsy so the staircase scares me a bit but it's lovely aesthetically.
very odd space, ala being john malcovich--they really did the better than could be expected.
I'd have to put some sort of railing up, a mostly see thru cable system would still look great.
The sleek, dark "modern" wainscotting breaks up the high room (in a high house) horizontally and must visually enlarge the space.
Fresh take on the usually traditional wood:)
This is as close to a house tour as you can get for the space: http://www.francoisebollackarchitects.com/projects/index.php?iid=60&cid=6
OOo! Pretty! Don't fall though!
Interesting how we all see so differently...the white fireplace, to me, looks wrong-would look so much sleeker with the mantle and the brick painted out dark grey or black-there's enough wood elsewhere to keep things warm...beautiful space regardless!
Excellent use of the space but I have to agree with the other posters about the lack of railings. It may look great but I know I'd end up in the ER within a week, klutz that I am.
Gorgeous!
the fireplace seems out-of-time, not nearly modern enough for the rest of the surroundings.
As an architect I'm also baffled at how many people get away with staircases that don't comply with building codes.
Great work!