It’s amazing the beauty that can result from the need to conceal an ugly steel post in the middle of a room. In this 3,000-square-foot penthouse on the curvilinear southeast corner of Helmut Jahn’s 600 North Fairbanks building, architect Jon Salzmann of Eastlake Studio (eastlakestudio.com) designed a floor-to-ceiling media cabinet to cover the offending post—and it soon became the multifunctional star of the space. With a shape that relates to the curve of the windows surrounding it, the cabinet houses a flat-screen TV on one side and a desk and storage space on the other. In the library area behind the desk, floating cabinets and shelves also swoop, even though they are built on a perfectly straight wall. The high-gloss creamy finish on these built-ins matches that of the Snaidero kitchen, which is located kitty-corner from the media cabinet—and was originally meant to go in its spot. Sometimes it pays to ditch the developer’s floor plan.

Photograph: Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing