Jeff Wardell and Claudia Sagan are a pair of travel-loving art collectors who needed a bigger space to show off their massive 120+ piece art collection.

In 2007 they purchased a 3,200-square-foot and 127-foot-long open-air loft. Instead of sectioning off the large space into smaller rooms, they decided to maintain the size and use of daylight by keeping the floor plan open. They pushed the master bedroom to the back, positioned the kitchen and living space in the center and situated a den at the street-facing front windows.

To achieve the industrial yet warm look throughout the space, they had the interior walls sandblasted to expose board-formed concrete walls and replaced carpet with long and knotty Georgia hickory pecan planks, further lengthening the loft.

The couple faced one major issue: how to add a guest bedroom / office without disrupting the flow of the space. Solution? Shipping containers! After finding and prepping the containers, the two crates were crane-lifted into the apartment through the roof, with the blue "office" container stacked atop the orange guest room.

The windowed wall in the guest bedroom maintains light and visual flow through the space but can be "closed off" for guest privacy with the help of liquid crystal, activated by the flick of a switch. A murphy bed folds down for guests to stay and hides away to keep the space open and the bathroom accessible.

Some other hand-picked posts you might enjoy on our Design Blog:

Christian Schaller's Transformer Apartment: Living in 258 Square Feet
A 1972 Airstream Gets a Modern Makeover from Hofmann Architecture
Hong Kong Apartment Design Efficiency To The Max!

Via Dwell