Soho Art Loft | Fuller/Overby Architecture

Three kinds of spaces are woven together within a classic Soho cast iron building – a working studio, a gallery, and a living space. The client, a painter, commissioned a gut renovation of a neglected loft directly above the Dia Earth Room, situated in one of the neighborhood’s original Fluxhouse cooperatives which generated the 1970’s transformation of Soho.

In this renovation a millwork Pangaea is inserted into the 19th century structural framework. The project unfolds around a centralized coffered space into program specific areas, each tailored to site conditions and pragmatic requirements. The studio embraces the windowed façade, the domestic areas are a thickened permeable perimeter, and the linear entry gallery frames views both close and beyond with various degrees of privacy. The spaces oscillate between openness and moments of enclosure, layered through the definition of cabinetry volumes, operable planes, and wrapped existing elements.

Fluid objects and furnishing elements hover amongst anchored moments in this open millwork field. A custom Boffi kitchen bar slides along the south wall, transitioning from the culinary to the studio wet space. A pond-like rug designed in collaboration with the artist seeps from a cluster of furniture, the irregular borders amplify the ambiguity of space under the pronounced ceiling grid. Materials, color and light converse. Gentle tadelakt and pliant homasote walls meet the three dimensional waxed wood armature.  Natural light from the eastern window wall filters throughout the depth of the space, accompanied by a population of ambient and featured fixtures within the millwork details. The harmonious existence of parts exudes a peaceful atmosphere; each moment is a quiet assertion of use and life transformed by space.

This project commenced in the studio of Diane Lewis where Emma Fuller was the Lead Designer and Associate. Upon the premature death of Diane, Fuller/Overby Architecture continued and completed the design work and oversaw construction.

Featured in Interni Magazine, “L’Equilibrio Armonico” July/August 2022

Architecture Firm: Fuller/Overby Architecture & Diane Lewis Architect

Lead Architects: Emma Fuller & Diane Lewis

Photography
Paul Warchol - www.warcholphotography.com

Marco Petrini - www.petrinistudio.com