In a penthouse loft overlooking the brick rooftops of Maastricht, an interior designer sets out to test a simple but demanding idea: can minimalism feel deeply human?
In Maastricht, Netherlands, a penthouse loft interior by Niels Maier begins with a request that sounds almost disarmingly simple: to create a space with a warm soul in a minimal set-up. The clients envisioned a home centred on gathering, a hospitality-style kitchen and bar flowing into a generous dining and living room. Rather than separating these zones, Maier treated the loft as a single continuous space. “It had to feel open and fluid,” he says. “A place where cooking, dining and living naturally happen together.”
Maier builds this openness through a two-tone colour palette. A soft umber tone runs through the architecture, paired with a natural stone shade that moves between beige and taupe with subtle light brown undertones. “It has the soul of the Mediterranean coast, adapting beautifully to changing light throughout the day,” he says. As daylight shifts through the loft, the surfaces change character without the architecture itself changing.
Material choices are consistent across the interior. Oak flooring is used in a natural finish, while walls and ceilings are treated in mineral paint. Cabinetry is integrated flush into the walls and finished in the same palette, allowing storage to sit within the architecture rather than interrupt it.
The kitchen introduces one of the few breaks in this softness, a ceramic worktop with a bush-hammered surface. “We wanted something that didn’t disappear,” Maier says. Brut brass tapware is deliberately left untreated. “It will change over time,” he says, “it becomes more honest the longer you live with it.”
