Soho Lofts

London

Two extra penthouse floors were added to a former industrial building in Soho which was converted into loft spaces. The penthouses grew out of the architecture below: rather than a differentiated architectural treatment, they take on the primary form of the spaces below with their raw industrial quality and develop its expression more freely as the floors rise, culminating in a curved roof double height space. They are entirely purpose built spaces. The walls on the fifth floor have fully glazed runs of floor to ceiling steel window detailed as the floors below, opening onto wide paved terraces facing east-west giving this floor a strong orientation in that direction. The sixth floor is orientated the other way to give major views at right angles to those on the floor below, the internal space having the curved roof rising to a double height space supported on a rising series of steel portal frames. The concept is that of two floors of contrasting qualities but with a strong overall unifying typology. Client: The Manhattan Loft Corporation