The loft, a long rectangle with windows at each end, occupies the top floor of a classic brick-and-wood 19th century manufacturing building. The clients were seeking to create a living and working environment (one member of the family is an active artist) that could also serve as a gallery for their collection of contemporary art.

The considerable ceiling height of the space was used to transform an otherwise generic loft into a rich spatial sequence of interlocking vertical and horizontal volumes. The central stair is illuminated by a skylight and at night, is animated by a “waterfall” of light from the vertical slots carved out of the wall adjacent to the stair, suggesting an infinite upward movement.

Living, eating and sleeping spaces are located on the main level, while the artist’s studio occupies the mezzanine, where an oppressively low ceiling has been replaced by a tall skylight spanning almost the entire space. This skylight and the stair volume emerge on the roof as over scaled metal-and-glass “shards” reminiscent of Alpine peaks, the favorite landscape of one of the clients who is an avid mountaineer. In keeping with the gallery esthetic desired by the clients, the color and material palette of the space is a subtle white-on-white.