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Located on venerable Capitol Hill, this former Masonic Temple had been walled and divided to create loft apartments. The views were spectacular, but the interiors conjured an aura of standing at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Tiny apartments, with narrow rooms and narrower hallways, had soaring 15’ ceilings. The client knew it wasn't meeting its full potential and called in Andreas Charalambous, Architect and Principal of FORMA Designs.
“The ceiling height was unsettling,” said Charalambous, who rattled off the space’s challenges: “The space was tiny and broken up, with floors in all these different finishes. There was this giant opening from the living room onto this ugly kitchen. And the fireplace had a weird angle above it to accommodate the flu.”
Deep recesses, unified floors and shadow effects from new railings create interest for your eye.
His first desire was to get rid of that weird angle and close the opening to hide the kitchen, but the client wanted eye contact with her guests when she was cooking. The compromise was to create an 18” opening that would allow a visual connection with the living room. On the living room side, a breakfast bar was created.
This horizontal opening became the inspiration for a theme of vertical and horizontal recesses, carved into the sheet rock, to carry your eye around the room. Where the long vertical channel meets the ceiling, Charalambous created a garden of recessed lights and pendants.
Sculptural recesses carry your eye up and over to the windows.
The hallway floors were changed to wood to match the living room, and a grey-beige palette of varying intensities was created.
The kitchen, residing two steps down from the living room, rested just behind the fireplace in a narrow galley made all the more cramped and cluttered by the jutting profiles of appliances and cabinets. A generous bulkhead above the cabinets was just a waste of space, and was removed. Tall panel cabinets that were flush were chosen and the upright refrigerator was replaced by an under-counter freezer and fridge. Concrete counters covered the added work surface. 
Eliminating the upright refrigerator streamlined the kitchen -- and gave much-needed workspace.
To unify the space, the materials and colors were carried throughout the master bedroom, bath and upstairs loft. In the living room, a silk and wool rug, designed by Charalambous, was set in front of the B&B Italia white leather sofa, and Knoll stools sit in front of the bar. A flat screen eliminated the televisionl. With sleek and modern now apparent in every room, the colonial railings in the hallway and in the loft, had to go. Charalambous designed a raw steel railing, painted it a dark grey beige and capped it with oak. The shadows of these rails play as much as role in the decor as the recesses.
The historic vistas are still extraordinary, but thanks to Charalambous' eye and a marriage of natural and innovative lighting, the interior's architectural lines are now striking.
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