the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

one could describe this project as a kinnd of”essay in loft design,” inasmuch as it involves the transformation of an empty ground-floor warehouse situated in downtown Milan into an ingenious scheme that explores the concepts of mass and void, the states of open and closed, ingeniously defying the container’s classic featureless long and narrow floor plan while successfully imposing all the necessary separate functions of a home. The outcome is most engaging, and offers an accomplished dissertation on conversion method itself. The unassuming plainness of the container is endorsed by the blanket application of white for ceilings and all vertical surfaces, within which is suspended a sort of open cube defined by floating panes of frosted glass that divide up the space into distinct areas, but leave it eminently permeable owing to the nature of these slender translucent partitions. This curious architectural device subdivides what is intrinsically a single space into three distinct functional areas, relegating the kitchen and service facilities to the bottom end beneath the sleeping quarters. But most of all, the device performs the subtle but expressive task of renderi ng the functional com partments distinguishable in both logical and perceptive terms, within the single spatial entity of the container. Effecting a sort of architectural sleight-ofhand, the idea’s mixture of sheer simplicity and basic materials defies all the established stereotypes of loft design by delineating an abstract space, dissolving thresholds and yet affirming their existence by means of these suspended transparent panels, which allow the “rooms” to flow seamlessly into each other, and whose layout is only really be perceived when passing physically through them. Given this challenge to the very idea of a loft typology, the project is equally unfussy about stylistic congruency, so by the same logic we find the traditional smooth white beola stone in the service areas side-by-side with such modern materials as resin, which benignly effaces the original !industrial wooden floor.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.

the trans-opaque loft

© Pierfrancesco Cravel . Pubblicata il 20 Luglio 2009.