Lofts, by definition, are former commercial spaces that have been converted for residential use and living/work environments. But lofts, by design, are vast silent expanses, soaring arches, stalwart steel girders, massive beams, and all the powerful drama of a curtain-time stage set. Lofts are a designer’s dream. The importance of urban loft design for the architectural and design world is highlighted in this collection of the finest, most dramatic of these transformed spaces. Lofts: New Designs for Urban Living takes you on an intimate tour of residential lofts in the major cities of the world including New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, London, Toronto, Paris, and Tokyo. Projects include work from cutting-edge designers: Roto, Fred Fisher, Peter Anders, Neil Frankel, Briggs/Iacucci, Peter Tow, Kar Ho, Moneo/Brock, Belmont Freeman, Lotek, Brayton & Hughes and more. Complete with informative text, Lofts features full-color photographs, plans, and a valuable resource guide for anyone who has every dreamed of converting a commercial building into a residential loft.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A great find for loft lovers. — Style At Home, April 2000
A surprisingly fresh look at an architectural style that is already in danger of becoming an urban cliché. —
House & Garden, October 1999
About the Author
Felicia Eisenberg Molnar is a Los Angeles-based design and architecture writer who specializes in architecture and design. As an editor, she has produced publications for both the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. Her articles on architecture and design appear regularly in the United States and Europe. Ms. Molnar also provides public relations, marketing, and communications services to professionals, manufacturers, and organizations involved in architecture, design, furnishings, and art.
New modern lofts offer open living spaces clear in concept and plan. Designers generally refrain from dividing the space into a labyrinth of small rooms. This setting of singular undifferentiated space, congenial to creativity, gives one a sense of spaciousness in a cramped urban environment. Expanses of industrial surfaces, with floor to ceiling windows drenched in sunlight, create a tabula rasa ready to receive unencumbered design – the basis of modernism. In the city, the sparse serenity of a modernist loft provides an uplifting quality of space. Clean planes and crisp corners look forever new. The purity associated with modernism in architecture takes on a new dimension in loft design.
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