A Milanese Loft With Exposed Concrete and Brass Accents
Houses and apartments built across Australia often borrow cues from European precedents, but few feel as immediate as the conversion of an old Milanese industrial shell into a contemporary home. Tucked inside one of the city's peripheral post-war districts, the loft sits behind an unassuming façade of grey render and weathered timber shutters, revealing itself layer by layer as you step off the cobbled courtyard.
Inside, a stripped-back material palette takes centre stage: board-formed concrete walls, polished brass fittings, wide-plank oak flooring and generous skylights that pour northern light across a single open volume. For design-aware readers from Sydney to Perth, the project reads like a masterclass in restraint, where every joint, conduit and seam is meant to be seen rather than disguised.
Heritage bones and industrial scale
The building was originally a textile workshop, completed in the late 1940s on the edge of the Lambrate district. Its reinforced concrete frame had been designed for the rigours of industrial production, with a 4.2-metre ceiling height, deep structural beams and large openings that once welcomed delivery trucks. When the current owner, an art director with a taste for raw materials, purchased the unit in 2021, the interior had been split into cramped offices by a long-forgotten graphic studio.
The renovation, led by Milan-based studio Officina Brambilla, set out to erase those partitions and reveal the original proportions. The architects retained the building's perimeter brickwork, restored the timber-framed industrial windows and exposed the underside of the upper slab, leaving tie-rod marks and formwork impressions visible. Australasian readers familiar with the warehouse conversions of Sydney's Surry Hills or Brisbane's New Farm will recognise this approach, though the Milanese version retains a heavier, almost monastic gravity thanks to the depth of the existing structure.
A new mezzanine floats above the living area on a single slim column, connected by an open-tread steel stair that reads more like sculpture than circulation. From the entry hall, the eye travels uninterrupted through kitchen, dining and lounge, drawing the city-dwelling visitor into a sequence of volumes that feel at once contemporary and rooted in mid-century industrial pragmatism.
Concrete as the primary language
Polished, board-formed concrete defines nearly every vertical surface, from the entrance pivot wall to the fireplace surround and the bathroom enclosures. Rather than smoothing these surfaces into a neutral backdrop, the designers treated the concrete as the focal finish, specifying a warm grey tone with a subtle Portland fleck that catches the raking light at dawn and dusk. Each pour was timed to leave a distinct grain, so the walls record the texture of the timber formwork used on site.
The decision speaks to a broader European shift away from paint and plaster, one that has been filtering into Australian renovations over the past decade. In cooler southern cities like Melbourne, where thermal mass can offset the wide temperature swings between winter nights and summer afternoons, concrete walls are beginning to appear in contemporary townhouses and apartments around Fitzroy and Brunswick. They offer a similar calmness here, integrating with underfloor heating and oiled timber to soften what might otherwise feel austere.
In the loft, concrete also performs acoustically, absorbing the echo from the high ceiling and giving music, conversation and the clink of glassware a grounded warmth. Lighting designers concealed low-glare LED strips within the ceiling coffers, washing the walls in even uplight that emphasises the material's tactile depth without flattening it.
Brass accents as a warm counterpoint
If concrete provides the calm, brass supplies the conversation. Pulls, tap fittings, light pendant stems, door handles and the long, low shelving rail in the kitchen have all been crafted from brushed or hand-polished brass in slightly different tones. The deeper, almost amber finish on the entry door hardware is offset by the brighter, mirror-like polish used on the bathroom joinery, so the metal reads as a collection of small moments rather than a singular statement.
This careful variation places the project in dialogue with a growing Australian appreciation for living finishes, metals that develop a patina over years of use. Brass has reappeared in local kitchens and bathrooms from Paddington terraces to newer apartments in Perth's Claremont quarter, where homeowners are pairing it with honed marble and spotted gum timber. The brass in Milan behaves in exactly the same way, darkening around high-touch points and reflecting the pale floor where the sun sweeps across it at midday.
The designers also used brass to mediate between old and new: a continuous brass plinth runs along the base of the original brick wall, sealing the joint between heritage fabric and new floor, while slim brass reveals frame the custom joinery. The result is a home where metal feels editorial, never decorative.
Spatial flow and natural light
A loft of this size lives or dies by its handling of daylight. Officina Brambilla carved three large skylights into the upper slab, each aligned with a specific zone below: the kitchen island, the reading nook beside the stair and the main bedroom. Motorised linen shades filter the harsh midday sun, while low-iron glass keeps the views true to the sky above. The result is a home that shifts mood throughout the day, cooler and reflective in the morning, warm and amber-lit as the afternoon passes.
The layout favours openness for everyday living but allows retreat when needed. Sliding oak panels close off the guest room and study, transforming the volume into a more intimate setting for dinner parties — a layout principle not lost on Australian readers accustomed to indoor-outdoor entertaining. While the Milan climate differs sharply from Brisbane's subtropical humidity or Sydney's coastal breezes, the project demonstrates how flexible zones can serve households who treat their homes as both refuge and social stage.
A long, low bench runs along the southern window wall, doubling as a window seat, shoe station and quiet perch. Beneath it, radiant pipes send gentle warmth through the polished concrete, a quiet detail that recalls the underfloor systems now appearing in higher-end renovations across Sydney's eastern suburbs and Adelaide's new townhouse developments.
Furniture and curatorial choices
Because the architecture is so assertive, the furniture selection is deliberately quiet. A bespoke oak dining table by local craftsman Giulio Marelli sits beneath a pair of adjustable brass task lamps; the living room pairs a deep-buttoned Italian sofa with a pair of vintage armchairs reupholstered in tobacco linen; the bed, a low platform in oiled walnut, disappears against the concrete wall behind it.
Curated objects do the rest. A pair of Murano glass vessels catch the morning light on the entry console; a small collection of black-and-white Milanese street photography runs along the corridor leading to the bathroom; a single tall Areca palm softens the corner near the mezzanine. The taste echoes what readers might find in the showrooms of Milan Design Week or the more restrained stands at Sydney Indesign, where Australian buyers increasingly look for pieces that will mature with the home rather than shout for attention.
| Material |
Where it appears |
Behaviour over time |
Best paired with |
| Board-formed concrete |
Walls, fireplace, bathroom enclosures |
Develops subtle patina, holds warmth |
Underfloor heating, oiled oak |
| Hand-polished brass |
Handles, tapware, shelving rails, plinths |
Darkens at touch points, deepens in tone |
Honed marble, spotted gum |
| Wide-plank oak |
Flooring, sliding panels, dining table |
Golden tones emerge with UV exposure |
Linen upholstery, wool rugs |
| Limewashed plaster |
Upper ceiling and selected reveals |
Softens with humidity, becomes matte |
Natural fibres, antique glass |
| Restored brick |
Original perimeter walls |
Continues to weather naturally |
Steel stair, concrete frame |
The loft invites a slower kind of looking. Rather than overwhelming visitors with statement pieces, it asks them to trace how a single brass edge meets a single concrete seam, and to notice how a shaft of late sun changes the room's colour from hour to hour. For anyone planning a renovation, the lesson is clear: commit to a material story, let it dictate the joinery, and treat every fitting as part of the architecture rather than an afterthought.
If this Milanese project has stirred ideas for your own home, browse the Tony Cucco archive for more architecture and interior stories from Milan and beyond. You will find further reading on Italian masters, contemporary apartment renovations and the furniture houses shaping this conversation, alongside notes from Salone del Mobile and other international design events worth a visit.
