A loft apartment is a dwelling in a former industrial or commercial building, characterised by a large open space with generous clear height, few internal walls and exposed structure. The word loft originally means an upper storey of a warehouse or an attic.
The housing type was not designed but arose. As industry left the inner cities in the decades after the Second World War, large factory and warehouse floors stood empty. In New York, particularly in SoHo, artists took over those cheap spaces because they could both live and work in them. What began as a cheap makeshift became a sought-after housing product from the 1970s and 1980s onward.
Characteristics
- Generous clear height. Often three to five metres, because the original use housed machinery or storage. That makes a mezzanine or a void possible.
- Open plan. The structure consists of columns and beams, not loadbearing internal walls. So it can be laid out freely.
- Exposed structure. Steel beams, cast iron columns, timber bressummers, concrete mushroom columns — deliberately left on show.
- Large industrial windows. Often steel windows with fine glazing bars, across whole sections of facade.
- Raw finishes. Fair-faced brickwork, concrete floors and exposed services.
Note the distinction from a loft space in the British sense: that is a low, non-habitable area under a roof. A loft apartment is the opposite — generous and high.
Building issues in conversion
Turning an industrial building into a dwelling is a change of use and therefore needs consent. The space is large and dramatic, but the building was not made to live in. The main points:
- Insulation. By far the biggest item. Factory buildings are almost always uninsulated. Internal insulation is usually the only option with a listed or character facade, and it demands a carefully considered vapour detail — otherwise condensation forms on the cold wall behind.
- Heating the volume. Here you are heating cubic metres, not square metres. Warm air rises to the ceiling and is lost there. Underfloor heating is considerably more effective in tall spaces than radiators, because the heat stays low.
- Acoustics. Large, hard, bare surfaces give a long reverberation time in which conversation becomes unintelligible. Budget absorbent measures — ceiling rafts, curtains, bookshelf walls — as part of the design, not as a later repair.
- Floor capacity. A factory floor often has ample capacity, but that is not automatic; some warehouse floors are deliberately light. Have the floor loading calculated, certainly for a new mezzanine.
- Fire safety and escape routes. A residential use imposes different requirements from an industrial one. Escape routes, compartmentation and smoke alarms have to be reassessed.
- Daylight and habitable rooms. With a deep plan, hardly any daylight reaches the middle. A void, a rooflight or a courtyard is then not a luxury but a necessity to meet the requirements for habitable rooms.
- Ground and material surveys. Former commercial buildings can contain ground contamination and asbestos. Have that investigated before purchase, not after.
Related terms
- Adaptive reuse
- Change of use
- Void
- Mezzanine
- Industrial heritage
- Reverberation time
- Internal insulation
- Habitable room
Want to know more about building terms? Take a look at our knowledge base on fredsdiyplans.com.