15 Inspiring Mezzanines to Uplift Your Spirit and Increase Square Footage

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Best displayed under soaring ceilings, mezzanines are versatile, functional spaces that help better lit up and ventilate a home and extend visual reach, creating inviting social spaces. This intermediate floor can help add a certain vibe to the space, illuminating it or defining a new purpose for a different portion of the same space.Small rooms can be adorned with mezzanines that solve space issues – this platform can serve as a second bedroom, a home office, a library or it can be the perfect solution for a double-heigh social area with the living space upstairs, so it can benefit from expansive views of the surroundings.

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• The Algarrobos House by Jose Maria Saez and Daniel Moreno Flores provokes our imagination with a wooden mezzanine built under the skylight. Above the kitchen and dining space, this platform made of equal beams is flooded with natural light via glass panes.
• The Cowshed House by Carter Williamson Architects boasts high clerestory windows unveiling the beauty of an open floor plan under natural daylight. Within this bright social space, the bedroom mezzanine sits snugged under the long steep roof plane.
• This small, 29 square meter apartment in Poland incorporates a mezzanine in its design, extending the living spaces with a large bed area. 3XA architects imagined a semi-mezzanine under the 3,7m ceiling and built it above the bathroom and hallway, solving the space issue with style.
• The Oriental Warehouse Loft renovation in San Francisco includes re-imagining its mezzanine level, replacing the opaque guardrails with transparent glass rails and thus creating a visual connection to the living space below. Local architecture team Edmonds & Lee imagined this platform as a sleeping mezzanine complete with a shower and a library.
• Part of the Unité d’Habitation ( or Cité Radieuse) in Marseille, France, this apartment paying homage to Le Corbusier’s influence on mid-century modern in the US was kindly photographed by the Living Agency. Dark walls under a white ceiling split by a mezzanine showcasing a large wooden rail compose a sleek and elegant design match.
• This Italian House Studio by Studioata defines a contemporary perspective on mezzanine design. Defined by wooden insertions throughout, this apartment was ingeniously adorned with a volumetric desk reached via a floating staircase. Creativity abounds in this functional home office mezzanine design, doesn’t it?
• This stunning mezzanine bath is part of Dutch architects Leijh, Kappelhof, Seckel, van den Dobbelsteen‘s portfolio. Under those soaring ceilings, religious songs used to bounce off the walls. You see, what was once a historical Dutch church was re-designed into a unique loft with inspiring details.
• Maxim Zhukov of To Taste designed this industrial bachelor loft for himself, choosing to have the office space levitating above the bed. A set of floating stairs lead up to the simple platform with a desk/railing oriented towards the window. Clever use of space, right?
• Le Couvent Loft is, as you might have guessed, a former convent. Created in 1750 by Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, this 25 square meter loft in Val d’Oise (only 15 km north of Paris) displays a chic living space mezzanine above the hallway, kitchen and dining space.

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• As Buildall Construction re-designed the Wrigley Loft inside the converted Wrigley Building in Leslieville, Toronto, they imagined a mezzanine level as the bedroom. Placed behind translucent doors in the volume under the bed area mezzanine, the home office can be either hidden or open, changing the vibe of the spacious living area.
• Balancing dark floors and a sunken white oak platform, this modern New York Urban Retreat by Paul Rudolph displays a floating staircase leading up to the living area mezzanine. Little intervention was necessary to update the 1960s home, one of which is the glass railing that keeps the design fresh and the visual connection at maximum.
• Needless to say, this luxurious mezzanine occupied by a bathtub looks like a heavenly place to spend the evenings, then just come down for a relaxing sleep. Dramatic in design, boasting double height wall paneling rising up to meet the startling ceiling, this private space in House Little Venice by Wells Mackereth was perfectly adorned with the mezzanine bathtub and a cast yellow and white glass 1960s chandelier.
• Simple and elegant, tucked safely under the sloping roof, this mezzanine home office is perfect for those who work from home and also want to be visually connected with the living environment around them. Slim mezzanine railings keep the floor plan visually open while encouraging simplicity in design and plenty of natural light fills the interiors.
• Extensive use of glass looks almost futuristic, especially when you combine it with sleek design lines and white details. At night, blinds come down over the enclosure shaping the rounded glass walls. During the day, riverside views of Chelsea Embankment and the River Thames flood the room. This Riverside Penthouse in London by Foster & Partners displays a creative way of guiding natural light inside, pass the glass railing on the mezzanine, penetrating deep into the home.
• White spaces draw in daylight and easily makes your favorite color stand out. Combine it with an open floor plan and a modern perspective on privacy and you got yourself a mezzanine bedroom area. In the case of the Tyresö Brevik Vacation House, interiors were decorated with a modern selection of furniture items to compose a breezy atmosphere.
• And when the mezzanine is the terraced platform from where panoramas start unrolling in front of your eyes, you know the mezzanine level was totally worth building. Keeping these views accessible, a glass panel was installed as railing. You see how transparency is always met with a modern solution for mezzanine levels that need to stay bright – the recurring glass railings. Especially when you renovate buildings meant for other purposes, like the glass and stone modern residence remodeled from a 15th century barn. Here, the mezzanine is the actual living space placed above the kitchen and dining space on the first level.