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Joel Sanders Architect, ANDarchitects, and Balmori Associates

LOFT RENOVATION, NEW YORK

Mark McMenamin -- Interior Design, 12/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Real-estate developer Matthew Blesso is clearly in the business, but he morphed into Typically Demanding Client when renovating his 3,100-square-foot penthouse loft in New York. His expectations: cutting-edge design, sequestered spots for brainstorming, grand areas for entertaining—plus, a paradigm of Blesso Properties's sustainability mission. Joel Sanders, ANDarchitect's Andrea Steele, and landscape designer Diana Balmori tackled the latter challenge literally and figuratively. More than just specifying eco-friendly materials, they crafted a comprehensive green aesthetic. A staircase rises from a leafy planter that separates sleeping and dining quarters, leading to the 2,200-square-foot terrace's ipé deck, sewn with sedum and grass. Lush vegetation covers the master bathroom's "green wall." It's an urban garden that never acknowledges the boundaries between indoors and out.

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