Contemporary Loft

The clients’ athletic and active lifestyle, with a professional motorbike racing hobby, created a unique challenge to designing the house, which is set in a very urban neighborhood. Inspired by the energy of the industrial, yet rich, eclectic tradition of motorbike racing, the architectural style of the house embraced the challenge of an upside down house that expresses energy and grandness within a timeless look.

With large spans of openings and glass, accented with flavors of Corten steel, old Chicago bricks, wood ceilings, and polished concrete floors, opportunities existed for a design where all the material vocabularies need to fit into a modern contemporary house. By opening up the house’s main upper living area, where the great room, kitchen, office, and large outdoor balcony are all open and flow together, the plan perfectly accommodates the clients’ lifestyle of entertaining guests and friends. On the ground floor, the house was structurally designed to provide the open floorplan to accommodate garages and a motorbike racing workshop that connect to a clubroom that opens to the rear yard and pool area.