exposed brick

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The residence is located on Crosby Street, which is part of the landmarked SoHo Cast Iron Historic District. Once a manufacturing and industrial area then an artists' enclave, the neighborhood is now a retail hub. This particular loft used to be a light bulb factory, which informed the renovation's materiality. All of the natural light enters the apartment from the living room windows. 590BC worked with Tamara Eaton Design to furnish the interiors, which holds a mix of refined and rough-hewn pieces. A vintage Harry Bertoia chair holds court with a B&B Italia sofa, shag carpet by Shansom Rugs, steel side table from Global Views, and steel Arco coffee table from Room. Throw pillows upholstered in fabrics from Upstate, Maharam, and Romo add punches of color. Photo by Frank Oudeman.

Goneau highlighted the red brick wall in the living room by leaving it bare and protecting it behind museum-quality glass. The space also features a floor-to-ceiling window that’s coated on the outside with a reflective film, letting residents keep their curtains open by day without fear of being seen from the street. The green sofa is by St-Laurent Domison and the white oak chairs are by Hans Wegner. All other furniture is custom.

The firm added some windows to direct attention to the interior garden area. Eames shell chairs and an Aeron chair from Herman Miller surround a custom desk.

For another residence in Turkey, the pair used brass and leather as luxurious counterpoints to whitewashed brick.

Tribeca Manufacturing Building New York–based architect Andrew Franz undertook the renovation of a landmark circa-1884 former soap warehouse in Tribeca, originally designed by George W. DaCunha in the Romanesque Revival style. Franz reorganized and modernized the six-story building—which retains its original 16-foot beam ceilings, brick walls, timber columns, and elevator winches from the former freight shaft—by incorporating steel, glass, handmade tile, and lacquer to complement the masonry and heavy timber. An interior courtyard and rectangular mezzanine are situated below the original 16-foot gull-wing ceiling planes.

Wolf also enlarged the 16-by-30-foot space's single window.

A steel I-beam was exposed during the renovation, and McManus and Drew opted to leave it that way, as it complemented the radiators and pipes that remain in their raw state elsewhere in the apartment. The general contractor, Eze Bongo, constructed the bamboo plywood desk.

With an exposed brick wall and mesmerizing graphic art, this kitchen, posted by @abigailclaireinspo, feels particularly on-trend.

It’s important to confirm that there are no rotten columns, beams, or other damaged supporting elements before you buy a home.

"The building was 90% secure from the beginning; the walls didn't have significant damage," the firm says. "The floors, on the other hand, were not in great shape." The firm replaced the floors with concrete.

Architect David Hill, his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children, have an unusual home by the standards of their college-town setting in Auburn, Alabama. Built in 1920, the industrial brick building has had previous incarnations as a church, a recycling center, and a pool hall, among others.

The Ale House Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire underwent an extensive renovation in 2009 when it was purchased by Doug Palardy and Daniel Innis––and is now one of the finest east coast inns. Photo by Philip Case Cohen.

A spare material palette characterizes the interiors, with brick walls left exposed wherever possible to showcase the home's history.

The brick wall adjacent to the custom dining table by Brooklyn-based Uhuru Design is original to the structure. 590BC and its team spent months trying to find the right translucency for the whitewash covering the brick. "We call it the 'selective loft' because of the contrast of the refined materials and cabinetry against the industrial materials of this former light bulb factory," says Breitner. Photo by Frank Oudeman.

Living Area Bischoff’s team retained the exposed brick on the interior, painting much of it white to help the space reflect sunlight. “There was an interest in having an open, more contemporary layout, but we still wanted some sense of living in this building that’s 100 years old,” Bischoff says. “That motivated us a lot to keep the brick. It’s a very subtle echo of what the house originally was.” Enclosing the ductwork would have forced the architects to lower the ceiling or install a subpar air-conditioning system. So it was left exposed, contributing to the floor’s loftlike atmosphere. New meets old with the furnishings as well: An antique barbershop pendant provides contrast to a sculptural lamp and a rug from Anthropologie. Investment buys were made with budget in mind, like the leather sofa scored at ABC Carpet & Home’s outlet store.

Subverting the traditional, conservatively cozy British barn conversion, Carl Turner created a getaway in rural Norfolk for himself and his friends to visit, repose, and consider the beauty of agrarian minimalism. Turner reclaimed most of the timber used for the flooring as he renovated buildings in London. He thought his stockpile was big enough for the Ochre Barn, but the scale of the place defeated him. The solution, surprisingly, was eBay, turning up an old mill’s worth of boards.

Tasked with transforming a 93-square-foot brick boiler room into a guesthouse, architect and metalworker Christi Azevedo flexed her creative muscle. The architect spent a year and a half designing and fabricating nearly everything in the structure save for the original brick walls. "I treated the interior like a custom piece of furniture," she says.