Though now a euphemism by which any apartment for sale smaller than 30 square meters styles itself, the ‘loft’ refers to a type of space that appeared in the New York of Warhol and The Factory, which broke away from the hierarchical division of the home and indiscriminately spread out to former warehouses and industrial premises. Perhaps not as countercultural but nevertheless in tune with that open, free spirit is the conversion into a residence of one of the floors of a 1930s Berlin office block, which has been given a more domestic character through the insertion of various elements.

An orthogonal metal structure gives the space a more homey scale by forming a second level as a bedroom, underneath which the foyer, the kitchen, the bathrooms, and a reading corner are arranged. The rest of the large hall is left as an open plan, but to make it less homogeneous, three striking semispherical luminaires hang from the ceiling and create different ambiences, each one a nod to a historical dome, from the unmistakable coffers of Agrippa’s Pantheon to the surreal muqarnas of Poelzig’s Großes Schauspielhaus and Fuller’s geodesic triangulations...[+]