Living in the city may have its limits, but not its limitations. Whether you want to be centrally located nestled amongst cafes, restaurants and shops or you prefer to be up on high enjoying the amazing views of the thriving metropolis, there is a plethora of options for the city dweller.
In contrast to urban warehouse conversions with beams and exposed brick columns there are also small spaces where slick planning and concealed storage utilise every facet to maximise every square meter. Conversions include former banks, shops and even a laundry; the home environment becomes a shared workspace as an artist’s studio or the base for a fashion company. Each home allows the crafting of the minimal, contemporary or vintage, to the eclectic and shabby chic. We have a great range of features in our section Urban Living, here’s a slice of city life…
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Pauric Sweeney masterminds his luxury bag empire from a buzzing Florentine Palazzo, then cycles to his minimalist family home. Although he is responsible for some of the fashion world’s most sensual and seriously lusted-after handbags, it when you discover that he originally trained as an architect that parts of the jigsaw start falling into place. For a man with such artistic bent, it’s not surprising his studio is in an ancient palazzo near Santa Croce. Parts of it date from the 14th century and the floors and frescoes are original. View interior feature.
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For Berlin-based artist and alternative musician found a former print works with a walled garden proved the perfect place in which to set up home and studio. I put a bathroom in what had been the chemical lab and painted the walls grey. Cezanne had grey walls in his studio…. The peeling paint and rusting metal balustrades at the entrance to the building serve as reminders of its past. View interior feature.
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With a mix of the poetic and strange, Tone Dalen’s created small still lifes which seem to move from here to there as the light travels around the room. And yet, she’s done nothing here except fill the place with herself, her things and her art. Not a single square meter has been designed, constructed or refurbished. Things have been placed intuitively as they’ve been accumulated, found, received as gifts or made by herself. 'For me the fun of owning your own apartment is that you can make as many holes as you like in the walls,..'. Tone says that, in summer, when the light fills the apartment nearly all of the time, she removes the visual white noise. However, when autumn has made its arrival and the long period of Nordic darkness is a fact, she wallpapers the walls with pictures again, mixing new purchases with earlier work ... For each season, she makes a new exhibition in her own private gallery at St. Paul’s Place. View interior feature.
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Stephan Schulte – an American TV consultant – bought this loft in a former industrial building after seeing it advertised as offering “the largest lofts in London”. Space is, according to Stephan, the ultimate luxury in life. Being a highly methodical and organized person, he naturally laid out the former industrial space in a clear, orderly manner in order to accentuate the open plan style, with the layout of the cavernous space designed around a centrally located kitchen, utilizing the least number of different materials and colours possible in tribute to his inspiration Mies van der Rohe. The design is arranged as a series of ambiences flowing around the kitchen, including a couple of private areas that can be closed off, and there is a restrained variety of materials visible – slate, concrete, exposed bricks, pale oak flooring and glass walls, all brightly lit by the wide windows along each wall. A rigorously restrained yet surprisingly comfortable home! View interior feature.
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On their way home from a long day of ‘doing the local flea markets’, Dag and Gjertrud decided to stop at a public viewing of an apartment which was up for sale in the ‘Old-town’ of Oslo’s east side. It was love at first sight for them both in this bright and airy apartment. Despite lowered ceilings, and a recent and fairly unbecoming modernization of the place, they instantly felt the urge to move in restore the apartment to its former glory. Their charming reworking of the interior has provided them both with a sunlit-flooded arena in which to work and live. There is no doubt that the proportions of the rooms in the apartment now back to their to their former stature. The generous space for two, large windows, original cornice detail and even the wood panelling have now been given a new lease of life. Not to mention the patchwork of an old kitchen they have created together… View interior feature.
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The novelist Chris Fowler bought this penthouse when he was looking for a bright and spacious space to live and work. Spending all day working at home, he wanted something which was open to the sky and nowhere could he have found a brighter, sunnier penthouse than this delightful, modern house built above a former industrial building by the Battle Basin in the King’s Cross area. The apartment has an overwhelming emphasis on the colour white – furniture, flooring and walls, apart from the few odd touches of steel grey in the kitchen, oak doors, brown cushions and the occasional bright splashes of colour in the artwork, flowers or fruit which punctuates the space. Undisputedly modern, this sleek apartment captures the essence of open plan, 21st century living. View interior feature.
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On the first floor of a spacious and elegant fin-de-siècle apartment building in the well-heeled Corso Sempione in Milan is this stunning contemporary apartment recently refurbished by the architect Stefano Cellerino. Modern, sleek and designed with contemporary materials, art and styling, this apartment also features some recycled items such as the large bookcase in the lounge which was found in an architectural salvage warehouse, as well as in the construction of the dining table, made from old pieces of flooring. Oriental statues impart a particular flavour to the interior, as does the etched figures in the glass door leading to the bedroom area – where are located the master bedroom and open plan ensuite bathroom as well as guest room. View interior feature.
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"We've approached the work on our own apartment as a professional project, but one where we can experiment and take anything we like, 'all the way". By doing so, newlyweds Andreas Joyce Nygaard and his wife Heidi Pettersvold have been their own ideal clients. They both work for the prestigious Oslo and New York based architectural firm Snohetta, and this wonderfully orange, perfectly patched work of art is now their own home. The classical turn of the century apartment has been rehabilitated to show off their work, but more than that, it challenges how far interior design actually can be taken in a home environment. And it works!! On the wall in their bright kitchen thrones the King himself. Elvis has been reformatted and framed so everyone can catch a glimpse of him. In an adjacent corner hangs a lightbox fitted with an x-ray of Heidi's rib-cage. The apartment is testimony to the challenge they put to themselves: how to combine the apartments' original features with the constantly expanding framework of their main objective, which is treating spaces as rooms. Every single choice they've made concerning pallette, materials, tactility and form reflect their constant drive to push their own boundaries... View interior feature
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