This loft of 115 sq. meters located in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine. A project is executed in style of loft with the use of great number of characteristic elements. An apartment is in new building in the center of city.

The architects’ starting point was to create a loft for a gentleman, rather than a hipster. Martin Architects came up with a bold design that’s not for the shy and retiring. A glass paned wall partly conceals a bedroom from the main living space, which faces an open kitchen, with a fire set ingeniously into its units.

The bold space is adorned with raw brick, cement and wood alongside refreshing designer furniture pieces. A wall of plants framed by reclaimed wood adds both a witty touch and greenery to a dining area. Colours throughout are masculine greys and browns, with yellow accents in rugs and lights, while exposed concrete forms the backdrop to an adventurously-styled bathroom.

The most important feature of this Kyiv Loft is furniture and elements of decor, which were made Ukrainian masters, companies and designers. Furniture of Igor Martin, developed for a company HIS (Home Ideas Supply), made debut in this project. The apartment is also a smart house; everything can be done through a smartphone.

An absolutely stunning example of modern loft design with a masculine touch.

Originally called Beethoven Hall, the space dates back to the 1860s.

Beethoven Hall is a 11-room full-floor loft condominium of unparalleled proportions. Passionately restored, the circa 1860 concert hall is the centerpiece for grand entertaining with its 32’+/- arched ceiling. Design elements include steel, glass, brick archways, wood-burning fireplace, reclaimed wood flooring, marble, imported wood doors beautifully integrate with modern amenities including central air and sound system. Chef’s kitchen, living, dining and solarium are perfect for informal gatherings. Terrace oasis provides for circular indoor/outdoor entertaining. The loggia is the gateway to 4 bedrooms including large master with spa bath. Laundry Room. Second level features fitness, media and guest area. High-tech library has state-of-the-art work stations. Additional 466+/-SF storage room. Film directors, artists and musicians are part of Beethoven Hall’s history. Located in downtown’s hottest hood where couture reigns along with luxury goods and gourmet eats.

Thanks to warm brick walls, wooden accents, and plush white furniture, the seating area manages to feel cozy — even inside such an expansive space.

The dining area features brick walls, a long wooden table, industrial accents, Gregory Colbert’s photos, and standout concert-hall elements: an incredibly high ceiling, porthole windows, and stage lighting.

Extra-large turquoise doors lead into the awe-inspiring loft space.

An arched doorway and a floor-to-ceiling sliding door lend an eclectic, industrial vibe.

A colorful outdoor seating area serves as a sunny city oasis.

The large terrace is ideal for entertaining guests.

Upholstered furniture in classic silhouettes create a cool contrast to the wood-and-iron industrial accents

Unique wooden furniture and wooden floors warm up an all-white space.

The chef’s kitchen includes a long table, a full wall of cabinets, and a cool turquoise island

The turquoise-and-marble accents are a fresh, unexpected contrast to the brick wall

The building’s older architectural elements give the loft charm and character

Wood paneling and unique wooden furniture warm up this zen bedroom

The minimalist bathroom features a claw-foot bathtub, a standing shower, and marble throughout

Eye-catching artwork, one simple wooden chair, and a built-in bookshelf add extra personality to the incredible arched doorway

The library features floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and industrial accents

Exposed brick serves as a cool backdrop to the workspace

The home office features an industrial side table and a classic rolling ladder

The upper loft area has been transformed into an at-home fitness area

The architects divided the various environments using free volumes instead of the conventional divisions floor to ceiling, thus creating an intriguing geography of materials, heights, light and shadow.

The wooden structural beams are lost through the free volumes. All woodwork is mahogany manufactured in Argentina and exported to NY in parts for easy assembly on site.

In the master bedroom is used again open space giving the industry its own bathroom and shower volumetric identity. The shower itself is circumscribed by a stone wall of 2.30 m in height and the perimeter wall of brick. The kitchen cabinets are designed in black steel and translucent plexiglass. The eco-friendly Loft Fireplaces alcohol use with and without ventilation.

  

San Francisco interior designer Ken Fulk is creating buzz and delight, shock and awe, with bold, iconoclastic and witty décor. His loft in San Francisco’s gritty South of Market district offers jolts of color, playful wit and a spirited view of modern design.

It’s the scene of private client consultations—along with bacchanals, chic cocktail parties, sold-out fundraiser dinners for city museums, and scenes of generous and witty hospitality.

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative” states the Oscar Wilde quote adorning the front window of Ken Fulk’s South of Market design studio and loft. The quip tells everything you need to know before heading upstairs to meet the witty and design-fearless Fulk, who is currently one of the brightest sparks in San Francisco’s design arena.

“I will never be accused of being boring,” said Fulk, originally from Jefferson country in Virginia. “Design should inspire and make you smile. And it should never be a bore.”

He founded Ken Fulk Design twelve years ago, after testing the waters by designing for handpicked clients. Fulk by-passed design school and a classic apprenticeship with a design firm. He has always stayed under the radar, taking on new clients by referral only. His 20-person firm is currently working on projects from Aspen to Provincetown and from Pacific Heights, to the Dordogne in South-west France.

“My biggest complaint about most rooms I see is that they look too ‘decorator-y’, said the designer. “I tend to shy away from most things ‘designer’. I find it to be chatter that might cloud my instincts. I always want to mix things up and relish the imperfection. Even impromptu has to feel definitive. It sounds easy, but it’s not.”

Take a right turn on a deserted street in a hidden corner of SoMa, and the handsome brick building that houses Ken Fulk’s design studio and loft hovers into view. With its grand arched windows, sculpted escutcheons, and elegant demeanor, the four-story edifice is more Grand Canal than industrial warehouse. It was this Quattrocento-style fantasy that inspired Fulk to acquire the building five years ago.

“I always wanted to live above the shop, though this loft is admittedly a bit more Bruce Wayne than corner grocer,” Fulk said. The warehouse includes his loft and a roof deck on the top floor, and Fulk’s design studio on the third floor. On the first two levels he warehouses an ever-expanding inventory of furniture and accessories he uses in design projects.

The building, built in the 1920’s, has a Moorish/Venetian exterior but the interior when Fulk acquired it was pure warehouse, with brick walls and worn fir floors.

“From the moment I walked in the door, I knew I was going to buy the building,” said Fulk. “I saw the old spiral staircase and the soaring 16-foot ceilings, and there was no turning back. I left the meeting and wrote an offer. Three weeks later I owned it.”

Fulk shares the loft with his partner of 20 years, Kurt Wootton, an accomplished pianist.

When they purchased the building, the interior brick walls had been sandblasted, most interior walls removed, and the old fir floors sanded.

“Basically it was a perfect shell. It took on an almost spiritual quality. It was this purity that moved me,” said the designer. “My motto in undertaking the project was ‘don’t screw it up’. I did not want to lose the feeling and character that so moved me about the space.”

Fulk and his team added all-new systems to the entire 14,000 sq. ft of the building, new plumbing, electric, HVAC but keeping them simple and industrial in appearance and leaving most systems exposed.

“For the loft I wanted to resist the trend to condo-ize the space by cutting it up into a traditional series of rooms,” said Fulk. “ I literally banished walls and doors with few exceptions.”

Fulk, a passionate and knowledgeable collector, had only to take a trip to Paris to check in with his favorite French antiques dealer, Stephane Olivier to find an 18th century portrait of a dandy for the bathroom, a 10-foot square industrial steel table for the living room, as well as gilded chairs and a series of vitrines for the bedroom and dressing room.

I wanted the space to function as a huge grand salon with quiet moments throughout,” said Fulk “Despite my love of color I resisted the urge and kept all of the walls white.”

Furnishings provide the bling. Against a graphic backdrop of black and white (zebra prints, houndstooth and Greek key patterns) colors pop. Two super-size Edward Wormley tufted sofas were covered in sapphire blue velvet. A vintage Robsjohn-Gibbings dining table top was recreated in reverse- painted glass in vivid Hermes orange. A pair of giant wing chairs is covered in an iridescent purple fabric from Etro.

“I have always felt very self-confident about design, “ said Fulk. “I was never afraid to learn, but afraid to be taught in a conventional sense. I feared I might lose something in the translation. Like a singer afraid to take voice lessons, I was scared that an innate gift might be lost.”

So he toys with scale. His 15-foot tall draped four-posted bed towering over the dressing room and adjacent bathroom, and an Hermes-orange dining table shimmering beside the industrial marble-topped counter in the kitchen.

To avoid other walls he designed the headboard of the bed to obscure the closets hidden on the other side. The shower floats in the space and encloses the bathroom.

“I take things of great disparity—spaces, furnishings, art, accessories—and find a way for them to live in harmony or at least live together in an off-hand way,” said the designer.

With bare windows on four sides of the loft—and the gilded dome of a Ukrainian Orthodox church looming outside the living room—the loft is consistently engaging.

He experiences the full spectrum of the day, with sunrise over the city; sunset behind Twin Peaks, and all-day light playing off the spectral Federal Building just blocks away.

“With all of the skylights we are never in the dark,” said Fulk, still entranced. “The full moon traces it’s way across the room, so bright I can almost read in bed by it. Waking up just as the sun is about to rise is magical. The space is cathedral like at that moment. In the meantime, his design studio is becoming the think tank he hoped for.

“I work with incredibly talented people who challenge and support one another to do better and better work,” said Fulk.

And the loft has become the grand salon he hoped for. He and his team have countless dinners, fund-raisers, birthday parties, a masked ball or two, a dinner for Jean-Paul Gaultier, piano recitals, movie nights and even more fundraisers.

“Now I am essentially looking for any excuse to throw a party.”

FULK’S FOLLY 

“I needed some way to shut the living space off from the studio down below connected by the industrial steel spiral staircase. My first instinct was a glass-walled enclosure, a sort of poor man’s Louvre entrance. However that turned out to be a rich man’s concept. Instead I settled for a floating library. Essentially it is a sky lit conservatory at the top of the stairs. It is an ideal spot to house my growing book and sculpture collection. The steel and glass doors to the library were salvaged from the Napa State Mental Hospital.”

                 

Open kitchen with 6-burner Wolf stove, commercial-grade vented hood, stainless Miele dishwasher & a double-door refrigerator for those in love with cooking. A movable granite island is fashioned from an antique cast-iron drafting table.

Crosby Street is a tranquil oasis amid the excitement of Soho’s Cast-Iron Historic District.

The Master bedroom and bath are encased by glass sliding doors with the very best stainless steel barn door system and German hardware. The master bath has a Waterworks sculptural tub. A large section of the loft could serve as one or two extra bedrooms, w/existing second designer bathroom and closet already in place.

Buy it now  

The greenhouse on the roof, which houses a whirlpool tub but no plants, offers bathers a panoramic view of the city.

Mr. Bruggink and his dog, Bart, on the new stairs to the third-level sleeping quarters. The brick wall is original.

The antique dining table in the kitchen was modernized by Studio Rolf.fr, using orange laminate. The appliances are from Ikea, and the cabinet doors are made out of old wood salvaged from the house.

A sink designed by Roland Manders sits under the stairs to the roof garden, at right. On the left, a bathroom and walk-in closet off the sleeping quarters.

The view from the kitchen to the living room at the back of the house. The stairs at the right lead to the sleeping quarters; the ones at the left, to Mr. Bruggink’s workshop.

The new construction separates the living area and the kitchen without creating closed rooms, which “expands a relatively narrow space,” Mr. Bruggink said.

The windows of the bedroom on the third level open onto a small balcony; the shower is hidden in a closet to the right of the bed. The bench is a modernized antique.

The beautiful elements of this home have been highlighted, whilst more functional pieces take a step back. For instance, take note of how the quirky asymmetrical vases appear to drip from the modern artwork above the console, which blends with the color matched wall behind it, or how the run of huge storage cupboards are almost invisible along one wall in white gloss and slim-line chrome handles.

With an eye for detail, Andreev has matched the Barcelona chairs with identically quilted light shades, and the expanse of plain white kitchen cabinets is broken by interesting use of textured slabs amongst standard flat finish fronts.

The deep wood treads of the staircase gives 3D effect to a glossy white edge, causing a graphical zigzag shape that is echoed by the modular storage units around the flat screen TV. The stairs appear to float beneath the clear glass balustrade towards a large sofa with adjustable sides and back rests, which fold out to transform the use of space, perfect for the sociable open plan nature of the scheme.

The loft features a great mix of modern furnishing and raw brick walls, the wood-beam ceilings has beautiful sky lights built in. This top floor apartment is connected to a rooftop, where owners cultivate their garden and love to grow vegetables.

The main challenge of the design was to create flow between the two obviously separate East and West halves of the apartment, which were a result of combining the two buildings in the past. To open up the space between, a new wide arched opening was added in the demising brick wall, seamlessly integrated by proportionally mimicking style of the existing arches. A synonymous window was installed on the east wall to create maximum light exposure in the new “great room”. Care was taken to preserve the loftâ€s history as a warehouse, and later an artistâ€s studio by keeping and accentuating its inherent openness, large steel skylights, material textures and exposed structure. To accentuate the mass and presence of the exposed brick wall, the new stair was cantilevered off of this inherently structural element. The wall was extended up to the top of the stair bulkhead, clad with re-used brick recovered after demolishing part of the wall for the new arch. New skylight above stair now brings in more light, inviting to enjoy the new outdoor roof terrace and garden. The Kitchen and family Breakfast room were positioned in the most brightly lit part of the apartment with two large existing skylights, which flood the space with natural southeast light.

It was important to separate public from private, however instead of hallways and closed doors, large sliding “partitions” allow for uninterrupted flow throughout the day, with option to screen off the childrenâ€s†play area and family bedrooms. With 3 children and 2 dogs, it was critical to plan for ample storage throughout the apartment, custom built-in benches, credenzas and bookcases work well to keep clutter hidden while seamlessly integrating with surrounding finishes. In the childrenâ€s playroom a new lofted platform with ladders, trap doors and writable walls was designed for playing and storage, while child-friendly low ceiling spaces where they can explore, read and study under an existing skylight.

All of the new materials were selected to accentuate the authentic quality of the space enhancing with warm, rich natural finishes such as oiled old-growth walnut floors and cabinets, cold rolled steel stair and doors, earth tone tiles and bamboo counters. While the finishes feel high end, all of the tactile surfaces are child and pet friendly, durable and will develop in character as they age.

By keeping the brick structure and the original sandstone tiles in some places, the owners felt they have kept that feel. As a counterweight they created a long, white wall of closets.The library shows the passion for photography of the owner. The use of stone in the bathroom, reaffirms the affinity with natural materials.

Major features like furniture, cabinetry, and even track lighting are arranged in a pleasant linear fashion that draws the eye without forcing it to settle. Carefully chosen points of contrast such as the unique geometric coffee table and vivid red couch grouping add functional visual interest – a subtle but important anchoring features considering the powerful flow of the other modern design elements.