Tribeca Loft

New York, NY—Inspired by the hidden spaces of her grandmother’s apartment in Vancouver,New York-based architect Andrea Leung has renovated a 1,600-sf historic Tribeca loft. By extracting an oddly-proportioned second level and inserting a series of high-ceilinged, nested rooms along one side of the space, Leung has created an airy loft complete with an architecturally-scaled cabinet of curiosities. The renovation was completed during the pandemic, and Leung lived in the space throughout.“Secret spaces fascinate me. My grandmother’s penthouse pied-à-terre was full of them. Push on the correct mirror, and it opened into a hidden tatami room.

Lean on the right bookcase, and a dimly lit hallway led you to her own personal oasis of calm,” Leung says of the project’s muse. Since she moved to New York in 2013, Leung had envisioned transforming a city apartment into a secluded refuge inspired by the essence of her grandmother’s space, but also updated to her own tastes. On a quiet corner in Tribeca, she found the ideal site: a sun-drenched loft with soaring antique verdigris tin ceilings held up by three cast-iron Corinthian columns. Located in a historic building dating to 1864, the apartment is accessed via a flight of lopsided stairs and a passage lined with oversized industrial rolling doors.

“One look at the raw space, and I knew exactly the sort of refuge I wanted to create,” Leung says. “One that unfolds and reveals itself slowly, that wows you initially with its grandeur and then capitalizes on your curiosity.” Leung began the project with several incisive changes. First and most drastically, she removed a cramped mezzanine that had been suspended over one side of the apartment, as well as the kitchen shoehorned below. She then reorganized the home’s private rooms along the east wall. A bedroom, dressing room, kitchen, and two baths are all hidden behind a long, continuous wall that stretches across the width of the space and shifts almost imperceptibly from a mirrored face across most of the surface, to a glass face in select areas. The concealed doors of the bedroom, primary bath, and kitchen open onto the loft’s large, bright living and dining area, which is lined with seven tall windows on two sides.

The interplay of this “wall of mirrors” and the procession of windows, many of which are reflected therein, was essential to Leung’s design: “The wall of mirrored doors allows the main living space to transcend its physical limitations and appear to double in size, while the generous windows with their original wavy glass are also reflected, bathing the walls with soft refracted light,” she explains. Looking into the bedroom, the reflection of the windows outside

and the view of the windows inside collapse on each other, creating a momentary—and whimsically mind-bending—inversion of interior and exterior. Reflective surfaces and hidden spaces feature across the entire home, adding an ethereal dimensionality throughout. A walnut-lined dressing room nestled behind the bedroom creates a meditative alcove with warm lighting and infinity mirrors. From the living room, a mirrored triple-bifold door opens to reveal the primary bathroom, where a monobloc oval tub is encased in walls of softly-veined stone. Another mirrored set of doors opens into a kitchen where matte figurative marble and patinated brass millwork play off of the loft’s new wide-plank oak floors. Behind a sliding partition off the entryway, a second bathroom is enveloped in veined marble with accents of bright metallics.

In the main living/dining area, Leung designed several custom pieces whose burnished, glowing surfaces bend light across the space. In the dining room, these include a brass and walnut redenza, dining table, and console set, whose irregularly shaped tops, legs, and doors play with concepts of balance and support. In the living room, a custom brass coffee table by Leung while at Steven Harris Architects for Barneys New York and the Arch Bench by Pietro Franceschini lend organic curves that complement the architecture’s rectilinearity. 

“As an architect, I thrive on the satisfaction that comes from arriving at elegantly simple design solutions,” says Leung. “But more importantly, it’s the promise of emotions created by beautiful spaces that drives my architecture. I am always interested in how ostensibly static configurations of materials can evoke poetic tensions that speak to our thoughts and memories, that touch upon aspects of our subconscious and prompt reactions we may not necessarily be able to fully articulate.”

Tribeca 閣樓——鏡子隱蔽所

紐約建築師 Andrea Leung 翻修了一座位於紐約州紐約市1,600 平方英尺（150平方米）大，歷史悠久的 Tribeca 閣樓，而翻修靈感來自她祖母在溫哥華公寓的一處隱蔽空間。Leung在這個特殊高層的比例內置入了一個通透舒適的建築盒子， 該翻修案是在疫情期間完成，當時 Leung 一直住在這個空間裡。Leung 談及該項目的靈感來源時說道：「秘密空間令我深深著迷。 我祖母在頂層公寓的臨時住所裡處處隱藏著這樣神秘的空間。 推開鏡子，一個榻榻米房間隱匿在其後。 光線沿著右側書架，

引領你從昏暗的走廊走進她個人的平靜綠洲。」自 2013 年搬到紐約以來， Leung 就設想將城市公寓改造成一個僻靜的避難所，靈感來自她祖母空間的精髓，但在這基礎上添入自己的品味。 在 Tribeca 一個安靜的角落，她找到了理想的地點：一座可追溯至1864年，歷史悠久的建築。通過一段傾斜的樓梯和一個內襯超大工業捲簾門，來到一個陽光普照的閣樓，銅綠錫天花板由高聳的古董三根科林斯式鑄鐵柱支撐。「一看原始空間，我就清楚地知道我想創造什麼樣的避難所——一個緩緩表現自體的避難所，以它排場驚艷你，接著引起你的好奇心。」

在主要的起居／用餐區，Leung 設計了幾件定製作品，它們光澤閃閃的表面使光線在空間中彎曲漫射。 在餐廳，這些黃銅和胡桃木書櫃、餐桌和控制台，其不規則形狀的頂部、腿和門與平衡和支持的概念。 在客廳裡，Leung 在 Steven Harris Architects 為 Barneys New York 定製的黃銅茶几和  Pietro Franceschini 的 Arch Bench建構起有機曲線來對比建築的直線性。「作為一名建築師，我從實現優雅簡單的設計中獲得滿足感而茁壯成長解決方案。」Leung 說，「但更重要的是，這是由美麗所創造的情感驅動我的建築空間。 我總是對表面上的靜態感興趣，材料的紋理可以喚起詩意的張力，訴說我們的思想和記憶，觸及我們潛意識和迅速反應的各個方面，即便我們不一定能夠充分表達。」