A visual feast--the most stunning and creative residential lofts, from the cozily traditional to the rigorously avant-garde, from New York to Milan, L.A. to Berlin. More than 370 full-color photographs; 15 architectural drawings.

In recent years it has become increasingly common to use very small uni-spatial apartments as living or working spaces. This kind of abode-also called the studio apartment-constitutes a great challenge for architects, designers and decorators in order to adapt and maximize the limited space to the user's requirements. Studio Apartments provides the reader with an ample guided tour of different types of studio apartments, all of recent construction. Focusing on the visual impression of the apartments, the book is an ample source of ideas and inspiration that readers can easily put into practice. The book shows to what limits imagination and creativity can be used to make the most of a limited amount of space in terms of functionality, comfort and attractiveness. All of the architectural projects included are less than 550 sq. feet.

The approach of the millennium has heralded a renaissance in urban living that has seen the widespread conversion of former schools, factories, hospitals, warehouses, and commercial spaces to provide stylish accommodation in our increasingly overcrowded cities. Formerly a marginal residential option, favored mostly by artists whose oversized artworks required the big, open spaces offered by industrial or commercial buildings, lofts have now become the fashionable choice for those who want to break free from the restrictions of conventional apartments. Designed along the lines of classic New York lofts, these vast spaces offer urban dwellers inspirational space. With stunning photographs of some of the world's most innovative conversions-- including the work of leading international architects and designers-- "Lofts" is the ultimate sourcebook for stylish, urban living. Combining the aspirational with the practical, it provides design solutions on a vast scale, whether you choose to commission an architect or interior designer or take on the work yourself. With creative ideas and key information for everything from space-planning and maximizing design characteristics to decorative schemes, fabrics, and furniture," Lofts "illustrates how to create the definitive living space that complements your lifestyle and combines aesthetics with comfort.

The loft is increasingly the residential image most identified with New York. Originally popularized by artists and designers, the enormous raw spaces, most often in old industrial buildings in lower Manhattan, have been laboratories for the creativity of architects. Some of the most striking and important residential design of the latter part of the twentieth century has been created for lofts. Celebrated design arbiter Mayer Rus has had unparalleled access to the most exceptional new projects. He has gathered a great variety of architects and designers -- all widely published in popular and trade magazines -- for the book: Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, Peter Stamberg and Paul Aferiat, Architecture Research Office, and Deborah Berke. Paul Warchol's exquisite photographs, most taken especially for this volume, capture not only the design and details but the qualities of light, context, and history that make each loft unique. The engaging text highlights the designers, owners, and their residences, in addition to evoking the dramatic qualities of loft living.

A stunning series of what will be seven books on the lofts of Northern, Central and Southern European cities. Diversity is the thread running throughout the series: the reader is treated to an immense variety of lofts in a wide range of buildings. They have been converted with great ingenuity and imagination by a new breed of urban dwellers who have embraced the loft-living idyll. Enthusiastically eclectic, importing ideas gathered from travel or reading and using furniture from modern emporiums of design or found in junk shops, these loft dwellers have left the essential character and texture of their buildings intact while layering space in subtle ways so that volumetric grandeur is not lost. This tour gives the reader a glimpse of the inventiveness, vigor and pride employed in creating spectacular dwellings out of amorphous spaces. Beautiful photographs dominate, and the text is deliberately kept to a minimum. Those with a passion for achitecture will be in their element.

A groundbreaking look at the transformation of SoHo. American cities entered a new phase when, beginning in the 1950s, artists and developers looked upon a decaying industrial zone in Lower Manhattan and saw, not blight, but opportunity: cheap rents, lax regulation, and wide open spaces. Thus, SoHo was born. From 1960 to 1980, residents transformed the industrial neighborhood into an artist district, creating the conditions under which it evolved into an upper-income, gentrified area. Introducing the idea—still potent in city planning today—that art could be harnessed to drive municipal prosperity, SoHo was the forerunner of gentrified districts in cities nationwide, spawning the notion of the creative class. In The Lofts of SoHo, Aaron Shkuda studies the transition of the district from industrial space to artists’ enclave to affluent residential area, focusing on the legacy of urban renewal in and around SoHo and the growth of artist-led redevelopment. Shkuda explores conflicts between residents and property owners and analyzes the city’s embrace of the once-illegal loft conversion as an urban development strategy. As Shkuda explains, artists eventually lost control of SoHo’s development, but over several decades they nonetheless forced scholars, policymakers, and the general public to take them seriously as critical actors in the twentieth-century American city.

Historical novel by the late Norah Lofts covering 400 years' history of a house, from Queen Elizabeth I to the 1950s, and the people and families who lived there. Their hopes, their heartbreaks and the house which affected their lives and fortunes.