The Q Loft project was a complete gut renovation of a loft for Joe Quesada, Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics in New York, and his family. Located in a former industrial building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, the Q-Loft occupies an entire floor with full-window exposures and classic urban views. Due to the depth of the extremely large floor plate, a strategy of placing “volumes-of-program” was employed. This was achieved by demarcating various private zones-of-use with cabinets to accommodate storage, allowing the “loft-ness” to flow around each cabinet and through each zone. The resultant is an interweaving Z-shaped public void.

The public zone consists not only of areas for kitchen, dining, and living, but also areas for display, collections and musical entertainment. These zones-of-use remain open, marked by furniture placement and lighting fixtures above. Natural light permeates the space and is shared by the use of clear frosted glass, and polycarbonate, creating a series of layered transparencies.

The master bedroom is situated in the back of the space with a stunning view, directly on axis with the Empire State Building. The master closet and bathroom are separated from the public zone by a 25-foot long floor-to-ceiling frosted glass pane. The guest bedroom, child’s room and playroom are located on the front street side of the loft united and separated by cabinets and frosted glass doors. All of these private spaces are provided with overhead windows that bring natural light into the interior of the floor plate. In between these private zones are the semi-private home theater, the entry, the powder room, and the artist’s studio.

To accommodate Mr. Quesada’s large collection of comic artifacts, a large number of built-ins are included in the studio and on the back of the theater for the display. The shelves on the theater are acrylic and have been setup to be lit internally. The large object void of the theater also allows the Quesada’s to enjoy the flexibility of easily dissolving the theater in and out of the public space by simply opening or closing the large sliding glass doors.