space, and a four- or five- foot-wide desk wasn’t going to cut it,” says Alan, who turned an odd-shaped niche in the second-floor loft into a work space. A 12-foot custom desk is flanked by bookcases, and the overhead arch generates structure in the open, airy setting. “I wanted to create its own little identity, so it wasn’t just lost in a vast space in the loft,” the designer says. The arch is constructed from drywall, and Alan says it “highlights an area that wouldn’t necessarily have that much pizazz.”