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      Patricia Urquiola creates lofty showroom for Moroso in Manhattan

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      Moroso has opened a new showroom in Manhattan designed by Patricia Urquiola, marking the 70th anniversary of the Italian brand.

      The 4,300 square-foot showroom (400 square metres) has a double-height space that was previously occupied by an art gallery.
      There are spaces for meetings and officesDespite its scale, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola sought to replicate the feeling of a home, by setting up the furniture in smaller configurations that could be seen in a living room or another intimate setting.
      The space is located at 105 Madison Avenue, in central Manhattan. It replaces the brand’s previous showroom in the SoHo neighbourhood, which opened in 2007.
      The showroom is located in New York City”The new Moroso showroom in New York transcends the concept of the exhibition space,” said the Italian brand founded in 1952 by Agostino and Diana Moroso.

      “[The showroom] introduces visitors to the company through a series of appealing domestic settings in which interiors in restrained colours heighten the appeal of the furniture on display,” Moroso added.
      Large columns were finished with handmade terracotta tilesThe team refinished the interiors with colourful pink finishes, new wooden floors and curved surfaces rather than corners.
      “The interiors are reinterpreted with an emphasis on their gently curved contours and lack of sharp angles, while particular attention is paid to colour,” said Moroso.
      The inaugural collection includes a sofa that is meant to look like moss-covered rocksLarge columns within the space were finished with shiny, handmade terracotta tiles, complementing the prevailing colour palette.
      Along the walls at the periphery of the space, Studio Urquiola created plant-filled alcoves, which help break up the space into smaller sections.
      Plant-filled alcoves line the walls of the space”Everything is studied in detail, and even the lighting is designed to make the space elegant and welcoming, while plants and niches create focal points in the different rooms,” said Moroso.
      In addition to the main exhibition space, the showroom includes a smaller mezzanine at the back, where the brand can host architects or other design professionals for meetings.

      Johnston Marklee installs villas inside industrial LA building for Holly Hunt Showroom

      The mezzanine space is divided into a lounge area, workstations and a glass structure with meeting rooms and a private office.
      A blue staircase connects this level to the ground floor and to the cellar, which has larger pieces.
      “Studio Urquiola’s architectural design alters the existing structure while maintaining its spatial characteristics, perfecting and emphasizing their soft, enveloping language with warm tones of terracotta and wood,” said Moroso.
      Patricia Urquiola also created furniture for the inaugural connectionThe inaugural collection on display at the showroom includes a sofa that is meant to look like moss-covered rocks by Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren of Swedish design studio Front, and a series of colourful furniture that was designed by Patricia Urquiola called Pacific, which is finished in wool upholstery.
      Patricia Urquiola founded her eponymous studio in 2001, with her partner Alberto Zontone. The studio takes on architectural commissions, as well as designing furniture, products, and exhibitions.
      Other projects by the Spanish designer include the Haworth Hotel in Michigan, which was revamped to become a “design showcase” and a table with mix-matched legs for Cassina.
      The photography is by Alex Kroke unless otherwise indicated.

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      Functional Creative Design refreshes NeueHouse co-working space in New York

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      Functional Creative Design founder Sarah A Abdallah has revamped the interiors of members’ club NeueHouse in Manhattan, turning the front of the space into a restaurant that can easily become a stage for events.

      The New York-based designer and consultant returned to refresh NeueHouse, having first worked on the project with Rockwell Group in 2014.
      A circular bar serves NeueHouse members throughout the dayA member of the creative co-working space herself, Abdallah used her knowledge of the place and extensive experience in hospitality design to renovate the interior as it approached its 10-year mark.
      Conversations about the project began pre-pandemic, and the restrictions enacted as a result ended up guiding portions of the design.
      Various seating options are offered to the side of the Spanish stepsMajor changes to the space included converting the front area into a restaurant, which is used for dining, informal meetings and as a workspace during the day.

      At night, this spot becomes a stage for speakers or performers, who form part of a robust events program.
      A new cafe and retail space features walnut millwork”Space planning for this particular area was very key to insuring people felt safe, also I had to be sure we were compliant with NYC regulations that were changing weekly,” Abdallah told Dezeen.
      With this need for flexibility in mind, the designers installed lightweight banquettes from Danish brand Menu that can be unclipped and easily moved by staff.
      Furniture like marble-topped tables is easily moveable so that the space can be transformed for eventsThese are accompanied by two-top tables with violet-hued marble surfaces, where members can “grab a tea and laptop and have their own morning ritual”.
      The restaurant faces a set of Spanish steps, which form areas for casual work and act as an amphitheatre of seats during events.
      The bathrooms are designed as elevated spaces for hand-washing ritualsThese were updated with new metal details, walnut veneer, custom pillows and tables for laptops or drinks.
      “We added small round tables by Bernhardt Design at the bottom steps and cluster stools by Suite NY so this could also be an extension of the restaurant as well,” said Abdallah. “Two people could sit together for a drink and small plates.”
      Floor-to-ceiling marble was added to bathroom areasTo the left is further seating that serves as a cafe during the day and a wine bar at night, including a custom banquette built into the side of the steps.
      The circular bar, designed as a freestanding sculptural element, is faced in leather padding and topped with a green marble counter.
      Two matching high-top tables in front allow members to gather and circulate as they wish, while a variety of seating options are available beyond.

      NeueHouse opens Los Angeles co-working space inside landmarked Bradbury Building

      Behind the Spanish steps is a new cafe and retail area, organized around a walnut island.
      In the bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling marble was added in the stalls and behind the urinals, and wood panelling also creates an elevated residential-like environment.
      “Hand washing became an essential ritual to our health during the pandemic and so we wanted to also elevate the bathrooms to allow members to take more time to look in the mirror, be in gratitude and also take in the design details,” Abdallah said.
      Abdallah used her experience in hospitality design to give all spaces a welcoming feelThe designer previously worked on projects including the Park Hyatt in Washington DC, the Intercontinental Hotels in Cairo and Geneva, and 15 Hudson Yards in NYC before founding Functional Creative Design.
      NeueHouse also operates three locations in Los Angeles, including one inside the landmarked Bradbury Building, while a fifth has been announced for Miami.
      Dezeen hosted a series of talks with the company in 2022, including a conversation about the metaverse and another focused on Afrofuturism.
      The photography is by Ball & Albanese.

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      Michaelis Boyd captures “the spirit of the absurd” in Moxy Lower East Side

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      Hotel brand Moxy has opened its fifth venue in New York City, with an eclectic design that includes a rooftop bar filled with plants and a piano room lined in blue velvet.

      Architecture and design studio Michaelis Boyd spearheaded the interior design of Moxy Lower East Side, while Rockwell Group designed two of its restaurants and Stonehill Taylor oversaw the architectural works.
      The ambition was to push the playful design of the Moxy brand even further than its sister venues, reflecting the vibrancy of the Bowery, where the Lower East Side meets SoHo.
      The Highlight Room is a rooftop bar with a palm tree at its centreThe 303-room hotel brings together different styles and narratives to create a “spirit of the absurd”.
      “We wanted to create a quirky yet stylish play on the absurd,” said Rina Kukaj, NY director at Michaelis Boyd.

      “The goal was a design that’s up to date but nods to the Bowery’s past, with a good dose of Moxy’s trademark whimsy and elements of surprise,” she told Dezeen.
      Silver Linings is a piano lounge furnished with blue velvet banquettes and curtainsMoxy is a subsidiary of hotel chain Marriott International, aimed at a younger market more focused on modern lifestyle experiences than traditional forms of luxury.
      Developed by real-estate company Lightstone, the hotel features four restaurant and bar venues, a lobby lounge with a bar and all-day cafe, and three studios that can be used for meetings, co-working or hospitality.
      Plants hang from the ceiling in the lobby”The Lower East Side has always been iconically cool,” said Mitchell Hochberg, president of Lightstone. “We saw it as the next logical frontier for Moxy.”
      “People come to the neighbourhood to indulge their thirst for discovery, and they’ll get that at the Moxy too.”
      The lobby lounge is brought to life by “hipster animals”In the lobby, a mix of seating types create opportunities for lounging, working or socialising, dotted amongst details that include game tables, overhead plants, “hipster animals” and chandeliers featuring 3D-printed pin-up girls.
      “We wanted to create a contemporary, leafy oasis,” said Michaelis Boyd co-founder, Alex Michaelis.

      Rockwell Group and Yabu Pushelberg team up for Moxy Chelsea hotel

      “As you walk through the lobby, wherever your eye takes you, you’ll see things happening,” he told Dezeen.
      “Hanging plantings overhead, a circular pattern on the terrazzo floor, and dome light fixtures that shine very softly down towards you. Guests are almost the artist at play, the focal point of the experience.”
      An all-day cafe, The Fix, can be found within the lobbySilver Lining is a lobby-adjacent piano lounge, furnished with blue velvet banquettes and curtains, and featuring imagery that references the life and work of Bowery’s one-time resident, Andy Warhol.
      “Silver Lining is sumptuous and sophisticated; it feels really intimate,” said Kukaj.
      Sake No Hana features Kimono-inspired tapestries and lantern-like pendantsRockwell Group took charge of Sake No Hana, a Japanese restaurant that combines references to New York’s 1980s punk scene and Japanese street culture.
      Kimono-inspired tapestries and lantern-like pendants light hang from the ceiling, while a pair of symmetric curving staircases wrap a blue-tiled bar.
      Loosie’s is a basement bar and club with an “exploded disco ball” chandelierLoosie’s – a basement bar and club – is Rockwell Group’s other contribution. This dark, atmospheric space centres around an “exploded disco ball” chandelier.
      On the 16th floor, Michaelis Boyd designed The Highlight Room to feel like a 19th-century pleasure garden. A palm tree is at the centre of this rooftop bar.
      Studios can be used for meetings, co-working or hospitality”We wanted to recreate this sense of a hidden garden amidst the rooftops,” said Kukaj.
      “Hanging plants and fabric lanterns sway from the ceiling above the bar, foliage springs from hidden corners and, at the centre, a majestic tree spreads its branches towards all four corners of the room.”
      The hotel has 303 bedrooms, with details including coloured glass screensMoxy Lower East Side is completed by simple and pared-back guest rooms. There are only a few design flourishes here – like the Hollywood-style lighting and coloured glass screens.
      The Moxy brand has been in New York since 2018, when it opened the Yabu Pushelberg-designed Moxy Times Square.
      Rockwell Group has created restaurants for all four New York venues and oversaw the entire design of Moxy East Village.
      Bedrooms feature Hollywood-style lighting and lava stone sinksFor Michaelis Boyd, Moxy Lower East Side is its first completed collaboration with the brand. The London and New York-based studio has previously created interiors for Soho House and The Williamsburg Hotel.
      “We’re known for our work with Soho House and although the communal spaces of the hotel are open to the public, in places we wanted to create the intimate feel of a member’s club,” added Kukaj.
      Moxy Lower East Side is the brand’s fourth hotel in New York”As for the guest rooms, they are designed as the quiet moment within the hotel, a step back from all the activity,” she added.
      Moxy Lower East Side opened in October and was the venue for Heidi Klum’s 2022 Halloween Party – where the supermodel memorably dressed in a head-to-toe worm costume.
      The photography is by Michael Kleinberg.

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      No Architecture inserts “garden folly” into New York duplex apartment

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      Wooden structures supporting net hammocks rise up through the two-storey interior of this apartment in New York’s West Village, designed by No Architecture.

      The Urban Tree House residence comprises two units in a skyscraper overlooking the Hudson River called 165 Charles Street, designed by Richard Meier & Partners and completed in 2005.
      A spiral staircase connects the pair of timber towers added into the double-height living space”We combined two units by first, redrawing all rooms into a cohesive ‘matrix plan’ and second, inserting a ‘garden folly’ that relates the interior to the adjacent Hudson River Greenway,” said New York-based No Architecture.
      Spanning 3,512 square feet (326 square metres), the apartment’s new double-height living space is surrounded by 22-foot-tall (6.7-metre) glass walls on three sides.
      Net hammocks are suspended above seating areasTo reduce the scale of this volume without blocking the light from entering, the architects added two “tree houses” constructed from vertical, horizontal and diagonal timber beams.

      One of the structures aligns with the home’s floor plan, while the other is rotated to face the park and the river beyond.
      One structure is aligned with the floor plan and the other is angled to face the park and river beyondBoth incorporate elevated hammocks made from black netting stretched between the beams, which are accessed via a spiral staircase between the two towers.
      “Like inhabitable diagrams, these installations can be read as two fragments of a 3D gridded matrix – the timber framework expressing x-, y- and z-lines of interconnecting spatial relations,” said No Architecture.
      Rooms are made flexible thanks to operable walls, like a bookshelf that rotates 360 degreesUnder and around these structures, tall plants add to the tree house aesthetic, and furniture is coloured in grey and neutral shades to match the exposed concrete columns and ceilings.
      This palette continues throughout the apartment, which includes four bathrooms and four bedrooms that the architects refer to as “chambers” due to their multi-functional capabilities.

      No Architecture arranges Flower House in the Berkshires around hexagonal courtyard

      The flexibility is made possible by a series of operable walls that can be shifted to control levels of privacy or connectivity.
      For example, giant moveable bookshelves divide the open living space and adjacent chambers. One slides sideways on tracks, while the other rotates 360 degrees.
      Douglas fir panelling is used throughout the apartmentThe same concept is applied to several of the doors, which are detailed to match the full-height Douglas fir panelling found in many of the rooms.
      “Across these multiple iterations, the architectural question of the ‘wall’ no longer functions primarily as separation, but also –through the added quality of motion – as connection,” No Architecture said.
      A neutral and grey palette complements the exposed concrete structureThe studio was founded by Andrew Heid in 2014, and has completed projects across the US – from a family nature retreat in rural Massachusetts to a house designed around a glazed garden in Oregon’s wine country.
      The Urban Tree House is one of many homes that incorporates net hammocks as playful furniture to occupy spare space – see six examples here.
      The photography is courtesy of No Architecture.
      Project credits:
      Team: Andrew Heid, Chengliang Li, Chuhan Zhou, Feng Zhao, Kun Qian, Nadya Mikhaylovskaya, Theo Dimitrasopoulos, Trendelina Salihu, Wanpeng Zu, Xiangxiang Wang, Zhe Cao, Ziwei DengCollaborators: GMS, Gallon Engineering, Blueberry Construction

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      DDG and IMG outfit penthouse in art deco-influenced Manhattan skyscraper

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      Arched openings frame views of New York City from this duplex penthouse apartment in a Carnegie Hill residential tower, designed and developed by American real estate company DDG.

      The penthouse sits atop the newly constructed 180 East 88th Street, an art deco-influenced building that tallest residence north of 72nd Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
      The arched opening that crowns 180 East 88th Street frame views from the interiorSpilt over two storeys, its 5,508 square feet (512 square metres) of interiors were designed by the tower’s architects and developers DDG and staged by New York firm IMG.
      The residence also enjoys an additional 3,500 square feet (325 square metres) of exterior spaces across multiple levels — including a private rooftop terrace overlooking Central Park.
      A sculptural staircase connects the two storeys and the roof terrace of the penthouseHuge arches in the grey-brick facades that wrap the building’s crown are visible from the inside, thanks to large expanses of glazing that enclose the apartment on both floors.

      There are views across the city in all directions, the most dramatic of which is of the Midtown skyline to the south.
      The kitchen features a golden cooker hood that echoes the building’s pinnacleThere are two living spaces, a large dining area and a separate eat-in kitchen, five bedrooms and a den, and four full and two half bathrooms.
      The two internal levels and the roof terrace are connected by a curvaceous staircase that rises through centre of the penthouse.

      Grey brickwork to clad Upper East Side residential tower by DDG

      Spaces are neutrally decorated, with sculptural light fixtures and expressive artworks adding visual interest.
      In the kitchen, a golden cooker hood echoes the colour and shape of an architectural feature on the building’s pinnacle.
      Expansive terraces enjoy unobstructed views across ManhattanCompleted earlier this year, 180 East 88th Street includes 46 half- and full-floor residences, along with amenities such as a partial indoor basketball court and soccer pitch, a game room, a residents’ lounge, a private fitness and yoga studio, and a children’s playroom with a slide.
      The building’s exterior design was influenced by “the boom in high-rise masonry construction in New York in the early 20th century”, and is one of many recent skyscrapers in the city that have ditched glass in favour of more solid-looking materials.
      Full-height glass walls allow the vistas to be enjoyed from the majority of rooms”Paying homage to the lost art of traditional craftsmanship, the intricate exterior features a striking hand-laid brick facade made of 600,000 handmade bricks by Denmark’s master brickworks Petersen Tegl,” said a statement from DDG.
      Manhattan has no shortage of luxury penthouses, with some of the most notable including a residence at the top of Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue and the premium unit at Zaha Hadid’s 520 West 28th Street development.
      The photography is by Sean Hemmerle.

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      Messana O'Rorke places marble bathrooms in Malin + Goetz founders' New York apartment

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      New York studio Messana O’Rorke has extended its collaboration with skincare brand Malin + Goetz by designing an apartment for its founders on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where special attention was paid to the bathrooms.

      After creating store interiors for the brand across the US for several years, Messana O’Rorke turned its attention to a space for co-founders Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz to live in.
      Messana O’Rorke renovated the apartment in a historic building on West 76th StreetThe apartment on West 76th Street was fully renovated for the couple to reflect their passions for beauty and wellness, while embracing the building’s history.
      “The space creates a gentle push and pull between the comfort of the past and the vigor of the present – embedded in the architectural details,” said Messana O’Rorke.
      A mixture of contemporary and vintage furniture and artworks imbue the spaces with personalityThese details include a traditional baseboard that encircles the main living spaces but ends abruptly in the central vestibule, where it is replaced with a quarter-inch (0.6-centimetre) shadow gap between the walls and floor for a more modern look.

      Reclaimed oak parquet flooring is laid in a herringbone pattern throughout most of the rooms, providing the air of a European pied-à-terre.
      Light materials were used for surfaces in the narrow kitchenA simplified version of a plaster relief detail – found during the demolition of a dropped ceiling in the bedroom – also wraps the wall and ceiling junctions, suggestive of crown moulding.
      While these details all tie the living spaces together, it’s in the bathrooms that Messana O’Rorke has made the most dramatic interventions.
      In the two bathrooms, Carrera marble lines the walls, floors and showers”Given that the homeowners are the founding partners of Malin + Goetz, Messana O’Rorke paid particular attention to the design of the two bathrooms, which reflect the beauty brand’s ethos as a modern apothecary,” said the studio.
      Unlacquered brass fixtures and hardware are installed against Carrera marble, which clads the walls, floors and showers to create a “spa-like” feeling.
      A hidden light strip appears to wash the stone in the shower with daylightIn one bathroom, mirrors surround a window above the sink, where more brass is used to line the recess and forms a trim around the perimeter.
      A shower is illuminated from a hidden pocket in the ceiling, giving the illusion that the stone wall is washed with daylight.

      Messana O’Rorke uses wood, marble and concrete for Malin+Goetz’s US stores

      The same marble is continued in the narrow kitchen as countertops and backsplash, keeping the space light in tandem with white cabinets and stainless steel appliances.
      Furniture is a blend of contemporary and vintage, mixing dark woods with sofas in muted velvet upholstery.
      Unlacquered brass is used for fixtures and to line a window recessA variety of artworks decorate the living room and den walls, while a large collection of books fills shelves in the office – both providing more colour and personality to the apartment.
      “Much like the Malin + Goetz boutiques the firm had previously designed, a single vintage display element subtly offsets the taut architectural envelope; the furnishings and interior appointments bridge the traditional and the modern,” Messana O’Rorke said.
      Herringbone patterned parquet was laid through the living spacesThe studio was founded in 1996 by Brian Messana and Toby O’Rorke, and has previously renovated an 18th-century home in Upstate New York.
      Renovations on the Upper West Side completed by other studios include a residence by Stadt Architecture where existing brickwork walls were paired with walnut floors and a 1920s apartment overhauled with custom millwork by Format Architecture Office.
      The photography is by Stephen Kent Johnson.

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      Sarah Jefferys creates Passive House in Brooklyn with dramatic cedar screen

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      American studio Sarah Jefferys Architecture + Interiors has renovated a slender townhouse in Brooklyn with airy rooms and a cedar screen on the facade to meet Passive House standards.

      Located in the Park Slope neighbourhood, the Passive House project involved the overhaul of a brick-faced, three-storey townhouse built in 1921 and owned by a family of four.
      Sarah Jefferys Architecture + Interiors remodelled a Brooklyn townhouse into a passive houseNew York-based Sarah Jefferys Architecture + Interiors sought to create a tranquil living atmosphere with elements that pay homage to the family’s Indian and Danish roots.
      Moreover, the team wanted the 3,000-square-foot (279-square-metre) building to align with Passive House standards for energy efficiency.
      High-quality windows were installedTo significantly reduce heating and cooling needs, the team installed triple-pane Zola windows, which are often used in passive houses. Walls were reconstructed to create an airtight envelope, which included the addition of cellulose insulation.

      The team also added an electric heat pump and an energy recovery ventilator, which helps purify the air.
      The front facade was kept intact and refurbished, while the rear wall was redesigned to add ample glazing. To provide privacy and to modulate incoming daylight, the team added an artful cedar screen that acts as both “a sculpture and a veil”.
      White oak was used to complement the bright coloursWithin the slender home, the team incorporated pops of colour and pale materials such as white oak.
      “We strategically used light hues and reflective materials, and created an airy environment to offset the narrow footprint of the townhouse,” the team said.
      The ground level has an open plan and holds the communal spaces.
      Reflective and light materials helped the studio meet environmental standardsUp front is the living room, where one finds a blue Living Divani sofa, rattan chairs from Fritz Hansen and a Muuto table.
      A wood-burning fireplace, an element not often found in passive homes, sits between the living and dining areas.
      To curb emissions from the hearth, the architects added a triple-pane glass enclosure and an extraction fan with an insulated cap. Still, because of the fireplace, the home does not fully meet the PHIUS certification requirements, the architect said.
      The all-white dining room is furnished with Ant chairs by Arne Jacobsen and a PH50 pendant by Poul Henningsen. Just beyond is the “showpiece kitchen”, which is framed with an LED light cove.
      The staircase has a skylight above”The light cove acts as a separation point – an outline – and provides an atmospheric glow throughout the kitchen,” the team said.
      In addition to the special lighting, the kitchen features slatted wooden cabinetry, yellow pendants by Louis Poulsen, and an island topped with Glassos crystallized glass.
      Part of the island consists of a live-sawn slab of white oak, which is lined with bar stools.
      The living room features a Muuto table”The beautiful juxtaposition between Glassos and white oak exemplifies the nature of the kitchen as both a practical work area and a leisurely lounge space for entertaining,” the team said.
      A sky-lit staircase leads to the upper levels. The first floor holds the main bedroom and bathroom, along with an office – all of which are arrayed along a corridor lined with frosted glass.

      Ten energy-saving homes designed to Passivhaus standards

      The main bedroom features a BoConcept bed, sconces by Robert Dudley Best for Bestlite and a graphic blanket by Pia Wallén for HAY. The bathroom is adorned with matte glass and penny-round tiles from Ann Sacks.
      The office is infused with a “touch of nostalgia”. Pieces include a Hans Wegner armchair, a teak Danish dresser and a 1962 copper pendant by Jo Hammerborg.
      Bright colours were used throughoutThe top level contains a den and two additional bedrooms. The house also has a cellar.
      Other Brooklyn townhouses include a house by Space4Architecture that has a skylit staircase and minimalist decor, and the family home of architects Fanny and Matthew Mueller, which features floating steps and a wood-and-steel bridge.
      The photography is by Morten Smidt.

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      GRT Architects combines oak and mosaic tiles for East Village Apartment renovation

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      New York-based GRT Architects has rearranged the layout of an apartment in the East Village and added warm materials during its renovation.

      The studio undertook the project in Onyx Court, a six-storey corner Beaux-Arts structure on Second Avenue built in 1902 by Harde & Short.
      The East Village Apartment renovation involved relocating the kitchen to a brighter spaceGoals for the renovation included reorganising rooms to improve sightlines through the apartment and optimising the natural light available in each room.
      “Our renovation completely rethought the apartment’s layout while preserving its turn-of-the-century disposition,” said the GRT Architects team. “The space is neither more open nor closed than when we found it.”
      The kitchen, living and dining areas are all connected but intended to be read as separate roomsThe first move was to straighten a corridor from the entrance, to provide a view of an east-facing window from the front door.

      To enable this, a shallow-arched opening was created in a load-bearing brick wall – the only structural change made during the overhaul.
      A full storage wall in the living room includes a panel that hides the TV”The journey down this corridor celebrates the building’s irregularity with asymmetrical niches and rounded openings in thick plaster walls,” GRT Architects said.
      This journey ends at the semi-open kitchen, which was relocated from diagonally across the apartment, to an area with better light and improved integration into the rest of the home.
      A textured sliding door reveals a small office behindAn island clad in oxblood-coloured tiles sits at the centre, surrounded by white oak cabinetry with oversized handles and a satin white countertop.
      Chequerboard two-inch mosaic tiling across the kitchen floor ends below a storage unit suspended from brass bars, clearly defining this space from the adjacent dining room.
      The primary bedroom now sits where the kitchen once wasA minimal brass pendant hangs above the walnut dining table, while the living room is found through a cased opening and also demarcated by a strip of herringbone parquet flooring.
      Largely decorated in a cooler grey hue compared to the warmer tones elsewhere, the living room features accents like a yellow armchair that matches the upholstery of the dining chairs, and a storage wall backed with sienna-coloured panels.
      Custom built-in closets were added to the bedroom”We organised this space around a full wall of built-in shelves which includes a sliding panel that conceals a television,” said GRT Architects.
      “A series of complementary colours emphasise the relief of this composition while oak pulls tie it back to the kitchen.”
      The second bedroom acts as both an office and a sleeping area thanks to a retractable murphy bedTucked behind a sliding textured glass door, a small office continues the same sienna shade across all four walls.
      The primary bedroom is located in place of the old kitchen and includes custom built-in closets – one occupying the shaft of a defunct dumbwaiter.

      GRT Architects blends old and new at renovated Brooklyn townhouse

      An adjacent bathroom combines a variety of hard and soft materials, ranging from flecked terrazzo and green mosaic tiles to oak cabinet doors that visually tie back to the kitchen.
      In the second bedroom, a murphy bed enables the space to be used as another office when needed.
      Materials in the bathroom echo those in the kitchenA powder room was also slotted into the floor plan as part of the reorganisation.
      “We found space for this small room by greatly reducing circulation space without compromising privacy,” the team said.
      The apartment is now organised along a straight corridorGRT Architects, founded by Tal Schori and Rustam-Marc Mehta in 2014, has worked on a variety of projects in New York City – from a Brooklyn townhouse overhaul to a cosy bakery.
      More recently, the firm has expanded further afield, completing a cedar bungalow above marshland on the Connecticut shoreline and a black house with huge triangular windows in Dutchess County.
      The photography is by Nicole Franzen.
      Project credits:
      Design architect and architect of record: GRT Architects: Rustam Mehta, Tal Schori, Pablo Taberna, Chelsea StittMEP engineer: ANZStructural engineer: Old Structures

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