Industrial cool, with a warm heart

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Soft, curvy furnishings, the warmth of wood, and a few well-considered design touches add comfort to a modern loft

Several of the newer condo buildings downtown capitalize on the chic factor of loft-style units, with exposed mechanicals, concrete floors and big factory-style windows. They’re a great alternative for people who want to live in something more interesting than the usual square white box.

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But there’s just one drawback: for all the edgy urban vibe of these spaces, without adding warmth and character to the decor, they often feel more cold than cool.

That’s why Olivia Bailey’s design for this entertainment-district condo is so appealing. The client, a twenty-something and recent graduate with a degree in social media and digital marketing, loved the unit’s floor-to-ceiling windows, gorgeous city views and 10-foot ceilings.

But a previous owner’s “improvements” – including vinyl flooring and a dated, inefficient kitchen – had to go. Storage and space organization in the unit was minimal. And she wanted to add her own artsy, Gen-Z stamp to her new home.

The first challenge, Bailey notes, was common to almost all condos: mechanicals, plumbing and electrical outlets can’t be moved, so their position often dictates the design. In this case, it was the HVAC system, housed in a giant white tube that snaked along the top of the two outer walls. The solution was to make it an integral part of the design by incorporating it seamlessly into the walls at each end.

You can see it in the brand-new kitchen, with its mid-toned engineered-wood cabinetry and built-in appliances; to accommodate the HVAC tube, she simply added a “false” panel extending the cabinetry to the wall and threaded the tube through it.

The same balance between warmth (particularly in furnishings, many of them selected by the owner, with organic materials or abstract shapes) and modern edge guided many of the decor choices: micro-cement wall finishes, quartz countertops, and glass lighting fixtures with exposed filaments, glowing tubes and other modern materials.

The main seating area, with its oversized, U-shaped sofa and irregularly shaped coffee table, provides an inviting counterpoint to the strong rectilinear geometry of the view, and is perfectly styled for entertaining, with a built -in bar in the same wood cabinetry at one side.

Around the corner, the wood is used a final time, as built-in storage surrounding a roomy king-size bed. (It also accommodates the other end of the HVAC tube, which disappears neatly into the top corner of the wall.)

In the ensuite, the wish list included replacing an unused tub with a bigger shower. All well and good, says Bailey – but that left the existing drain in a slightly awkward position, which called for a subtle, and ingenious remedy.

It’s all about the tile, she says: the shower fixtures are lined up along a single vertical seam on one wall formed by two rows of 12-by-24-inch tiles, while diagonal cuts turn the drain into an eye-catching design feature.

Among the various features of the condo – provided both by Bailey and her artistically minded client – perhaps the most singular is the owner’s carrot-coloured modular sofa, which she asked to be given a place of honour in the new design.

The new, more efficient ell-shaped layout – with kitchen and living areas on one arm, and bedroom and ensuite on the other – allowed Bailey to carve out a perfect retreat in the corner, illuminated on two sides by those wonderful, vast windows. Now, it’s the client’s favourite spot for reading, checking socials after a long day, or simply looking out at the vibrant city life all around her.

“It’s exactly what she wanted: a cohesive design, with just a bit of a wabi-sabi feeling to it,” says Bailey. “It has both industrial elements and warm homey touches. And it feels like her; it’s not cold at all.”