TriBeCa Loft by Nexus Designs // New York City.

Located in a former wrapping paper factory in New York City’s Tribeca, this fourth floor loft was recently transformed by the lucky ducks from Melbourne studio Nexus Designs. I say lucky, although it must have been completely horrible working on this project. Pfffttt, yeah right! The team at Nexus had previously worked with this savvy client on two Australian projects. They must have done something right, because the client came back for more.

Inspired by the Blue Mountains in New South Whales, dusky blue and purple upholstery is complemented by warm timbers and vibrant yellow tones. The aim was to create multiple living areas to provide intimacy and flexibility within the greater space. Below is a little Q&A with the designers about this project. Take it away ladies!

+ What was your design inspiration for this project – i.e was it a result of client’s brief, a particular concept or an idea etc?

The fact that this historically significant loft is located in the heart of Tribeca NYC was a pretty significant source of inspiration. Our client also gave us a brilliant starting point for the colour palette which was an image in one of our books called Using Australian Colour. The image was of the NSW Blue Mountains in the late afternoon with golden sunshine and deep purples and violets.

+ Your favourite thing about this project?

Who doesn’t love being able to say that they’re designing a loft in NYC for nine months?  But really the best thing was the absolute delight of our clients and the post-party text to tell us how well the space had been able to accommodate 65 people eating lobster and short ribs the night before.  We already knew it had the capacity to feel intimate and personal for the two of them, but now it was clear it could do it all.

+ Most challenging aspect? 

Only having two site visits and having to present a lot of our work by Skype.  There were a lot of FedEx packages zipping around the world with samples and drawings.

+ What did you learn during the project?

We always learn something new, but here there was one old lesson that we were happy to get reacquainted with: if you buy well designed, well made things you can have them for a very long time – we’ve been slowly building this client’s collection of furniture and artworks over more than a decade, and it was great to be able to just keep building on it and not have to add to landfill.

+ Would you have done anything differently?

We are really happy with the way this project turned out and so is the client, so no, we wouldn’t do anything differently. It’s a great example how a clear brief backed up by trust from a client let us do something beautiful and personal.

+ Any interesting/ funny/ quirky facts you could tell us?

For a while we were calling the furniture collection Noah’s Ark. We had two Egg Chairs, two Swans, two Chaises, two Jenette Chairs, two AJ Lamps, two Moooi Carbon Chairs etc etc, so we made sure that we got some odd numbers in there  to stop it from being too even.

[Images courtesy of Nexus Designs.]