New York City

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      Rockwell Group completes luxury residents-only leisure club for New York's Waterline Square

      by

      A sinuous wooden walkway connects different amenities in this private leisure club that architecture and design firm Rockwell Group has created for residents of New York’s Waterline Square development.The Waterline Club by Rockwell Group links together the trio of skyscrapers that make up Waterline Square, a five-acre residential development located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side between West 59th and 61st streets.
      Each of the three buildings was designed by a different architect – Rafael Viñoly, Richard Meier and KPF – and together accommodates 263 luxury apartments.

      An elevated wooden walkway crosses over Nexus, the club’s central gathering spot
      Residents now have exclusive access to 77,000 square feet (7,153 square metres) of leisure amenities available in The Waterline Club, which occupies three subterranean levels beneath the development.

      When devising the interiors, Rockwell Group made sure to make room for activities that “appeal to both left and right-brain thinking”.

      Residents can use The Waterline Club’s fitness centre
      “Our research led to a major observation: New Yorkers have diverse, dynamic interests,” the firm explained.
      “Rather than offer only the typical athletic facilities, we wanted to appeal to New Yorkers’ balanced approach to life, which includes art, music, community, and play,” it continued.
      “We grouped active amenities together, and social and cultural amenities together, establishing a micro-community and an oasis within the city.”

      The club also includes a basketball court
      The central hub of the club is a vast travertine-lined room, dubbed Nexus, which is located down on the third, lowest level. Dotted with an array of plush leather sofas and sculptural armchairs, the room has sightlines through to activity rooms at this level like the gym and tennis court.

      David Rockwell and Joyce Wang team up for first Equinox Hotel in New York

      At this level there’s also a 30-foot-tall (nine-metre-tall) rock climbing wall, a half-pipe skate park, a golf simulation room, a music recording studio and an indoor greenhouse where residents can do gardening.

      Musical residents can make use of the club’s recording studio
      Winding up and across the Nexus is a sinuous wooden bridge that connects visitors to amenities on the club’s upper floors.
      Rockwell Group, which describes the structure as a “circulation ribbon”, took cues from other notable pedestrian paths in New York such as the spiralling walkway inside the Guggenheim Museum and the looping running track that goes around Central Park’s reservoir.
      “The bridge inspires guests to seek out new adventures,” added the firm. “It dips down in the centre, which gives the illusion of tension or stretching and also evokes speed and movement.”

      There’s additionally a series of playrooms for residents’ children
      Among the selection of amenities on the club’s second floor are children’s playrooms, a games arcade, a pets area and a variety of fitness spaces including a basketball court, kickboxing studio and mini athletics field which is fit-out with astroturf.
      This is followed by a sauna, spa treatment rooms and two swimming pools – one of which is Olympic-sized – up on the club’s first floor.

      One of the two swimming pools which can be found on the club’s first floor
      The Waterline Club is a short distance from the high-end hotel that Rockwell Group and Joyce Wang Studio designed for fitness brand Equinox.
      Opened to the public at the end of the last year, the hotel includes 212 guest rooms, a state-of-the-art gym and a rooftop pool that directly overlooks Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel project.
      Photography is by Evan Joseph, excluding top image by Scott Frances.

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      Mythology crafts warm plywood interiors for Shen beauty store in Brooklyn

      by

      Plywood covers almost every surface in this store that creative studio Mythology has designed for beauty retailer Shen in Brooklyn, New York.Shen’s new retail space is nestled in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighbourhood and measures 1,550 square metres.
      The former store of the beauty retailer – which is known for selling a roster of independent makeup and skincare brands – had been located in the nearby area of Carroll Gardens and featured a mix of white and lavender-pink walls.

      The interior of Shen’s store is lined with plywood
      Manhattan-based Mythology has fashioned a warmer fit-out for this location, opting to line every surface in Baltic birch plywood.

      “We challenged ourselves to use a singular material because we wanted to juxtapose a humble utilitarian material like plywood with the high-end products featured in Shen’s product offering,” Ted Galperin, a partner and director of retail at Mythology, told Dezeen.
      “Using both the face and end-grain of the plywood allowed us to create a multitude of custom applications, and add visual variety to the space.”

      Colour is provided by hand-drawn wall murals
      Inside, Shen has been loosely divided into three sections. The first section is dedicated to customer browsing and lies towards the left of the store.
      Plywood has been used here to make a sequence of storage units that fan outwards from the wall, each one complete with vanity mirror and shelving where products are openly displayed. Names of different brands that are on offer have been carved into plywood panels set directly above the units.

      Plywood counters displaying products slope out from the walls
      The second section comprises a couple of triangular plywood islands in the middle of the store, where Shen staff can spotlight certain products and talk through them in detail with customers or demonstrate how they’re used.
      On the right-hand side of the store is the third section, which is used for services like makeup tutorials. There’s also an angled plywood counter here that showcases candles and scents for the home, running beneath a three-dimensional plywood sign of Shen’s company logo.

      The store includes an area for makeup tutorials
      Excluding a handful of restored 1950s stools from Thonet, furnishings and decorative elements in the store have been kept to a minimum.
      A splash of colour is added by a bespoke mural created by New York artist Petra Börner, which features a black-line illustration of a person’s face surrounded by wobbly blotches of green and turquoise paint.

      Beauty treatment rooms lie towards the rear of the store
      Another mural by Börner using pink and orange tones appears in the treatment area at the rear of the store, where customers can come for treatments like facials, waxing, and microblading.
      Walls here have also been painted a pinkish hue, but exposed plywood can still be seen on the floor, built-in sofas and beauticians’ cupboards.

      Walls in the treatment rooms have been painted pink
      Mythology isn’t the only design studio that has created a striking retail interior using just one material.
      Brooks + Scarpa lined the walls of an Aesop shop in downtown Los Angeles with cardboard fabric rolls salvaged from local fashion houses and costume shops, while Valerio Olgiati blanketed a Celine store in Miami in blue-tinged marble.
      An Ace & Tate store in Antwerp is also lined exclusively in white terrazzo tiles inlaid with red and blue aggregate.
      Photography is by Brooke Holm.

      Read more: More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      Outdoor dining on New York City streets becomes permanent

      by

      New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has made the Open Restaurants Program, which allows restaurants in the city to extend seating onto streets, sidewalks and public spaces, permanent following the coronavirus pandemic.First temporarily initiated in June to allow restaurants to continue doing business while adhering to social distancing restrictions, the programme will now be a year-round fixture, De Blasio announced on 25 September.
      The Open Restaurants Program, which has seen outdoor dining spaces pop up across the city, will boost the capacity of restaurants as they open indoor dining at 50 per cent capacity as New York gradually reopens after the coronavirus lockdown.
      Restaurants allowed to heat outdoor spaces and build tents
      Under the scheme, eateries are allowed to extend seating onto sidewalks and roadways, or onto adjacent outdoor spaces with their neighbours’ consent. Establishments must follow a list of requirements for an Open Restaurant design, which include a clear path on the pavement, a maximum distance from the curb and a required height of enclosing barriers.
      De Blasio’s extension will also introduce guidelines for restaurants to heat outdoor areas during the colder winter months, which will be released by the end of September.

      David Rockwell unveils kit to build restaurants on streets following pandemic

      These regulations will allow the installation of electrical heaters on both sidewalks and roadways, and propane and natural gas heaters only on pavements. Propane will require a permit from New York City Fire Department.
      Restaurants will also be able to build tents, ranging from partial to full enclosures, in order to keep diners warm.
      Outdoor seating enables safe dining amid pandemic
      Food establishments will have to apply online for permission to become an Open Restaurant. Three or more restaurants on a street that is closed to traffic can also apply together to expand outdoors in another option known as Open Streets: Restaurants.
      Following the city lockdown, more than 10,300 restaurants citywide reopened with activities outdoors over summer, according to the New York Times, allowing them to stay afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic.
      A number of architects and designers also came up with creative ways for restaurants to allow safe dining post-Covid-19. In May, ahead of New York’s outdoor dining programme, designer David Rockwell created a kit of parts to turn the city’s streets into outdoor restaurants with socially distanced dining.
      His firm, Rockwell Group, later built a pro-bono DineOut NYC project (pictured top) comprising 120 seats for restaurants on Mott Street in Chinatown.
      Arts centre Mediamatic also developed a socially distanced dining experience in Amsterdam where guests sit in their own greenhouse and hosts wear face shields.
      Photograph of DineOut NYC is by Emily Andrews for Rockwell Group.

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      New York clothing store Nanamica is designed like a Japanese house

      by

      Woodwork form the frame of a gabled house inside this clothing store in New York designed by Japanese architect Taichi Kuma.

      Tokyo-based Kuma designed the store cn the city’s Soho neighbourhood for Japanese clothing brand Nanamica.

      Large mirrors reflect the gabled structure
      Marking its second outpost following another in Tokyo, the store was designed to draw on the brand’s Nanamica, which means house of seven seas. Working with the brand founder, Eiichiro Hommam, Kuma developed the interior design to take cues from a Japanese beach house.

      Shelving is made from matching wood
      The aim is to express “the free and relaxed feeling of the seaside, but with a distinctly Japanese aesthetic sensibility meaning the true highlight is the nanamica products”, according to the brand.

      Shelving and clothing rails tucked outside the wood frame
      A key part of this is a series of gabled structures made from light oak that are intended to outline a house. The frame is slightly smaller that the store to leave space on the outside for shelving for handbags and plants, and clothing rails built on the walls made out of matching wood.
      Wooden shelving for clothing and benches for customers to relax are also arranged inside the house-like structure. The free-standing shelving is backed by a translucent, recycled corrugated plastic matching the wall of the material at the front of the store and the rear, where it shields changing rooms placed behind.

      Corrugated plastic shields changing rooms at the rear
      Two large mirrors are placed on columns that protrude into the space creating the illusion of more room. White spotlighting is arranged along the top of the gable running down the middle of the space.
      Kuma and Hommam stripped back the initial space to create Nanamica New York, creating a bare backdrop for the simple intervention. Walls and ceiling beams are painted white, while the floor is polished concrete.

      Nanamica is located on Wooster Street
      Other recently completed stores in New York City include ONS Clothing store, which features a stage with a green curtain for hosting events, and Los Angeles clothing brand Lunya’s space in Nolita, which takes cues from “upscale New York” apartments.

      Read more:

      More images More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      OMA designs glass volume to top Tiffany & Co's New York flagship store

      by

      OMA New York, led by Shohei Shigematsu, has unveiled its design for a glass addition to top the historic Tiffany & Co store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.The project involves the preservation of the jewellery brand’s 80-year old flagship location, a renovation of its ground floor and the construction of a rectangular glass volume that will span three storeys, adding space for hosting exhibitions and events.
      Built in 1940 by Cross & Cross, the existing limestone facade of the Tiffany & Co building is marked by its grid of windows and scalloped edges. In 1980 an upper volume was added to the building to house offices, which will be demolished and replaced by the new glass structure as part of this latest renovation by OMA.

      “Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue Flagship is more than a retail space, it is a destination with a public dimension,” said OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu. “The new addition is informed by programmatic needs of the evolving brand – a gathering place that acts as a contemporary counterpart to the iconic ground level space and its activities.”

      “The floating volume over an existing terrace provides a clear visual cue to a vertical journey of diverse experiences throughout the building,” he added.
      OMA’s design plans to form the new volume using two stacked glass structures. The lower one will comprise a recessed box covered with glass windows, while the upper portion will be wrapped with slumped glass walls modelled after the building’s decorative parapet.

      OMA adds iridescent glass escalator to New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue

      The ridged glass requires minimal vertical support and has a reflective surface designed for viewing the city from the interiors while offering privacy looking in from the exterior.
      An outdoor patio for hosting events surrounds the lower, two-storey volume. The existing space is furnished with tables and plants that overlook Fifth Avenue and on to Central Park. Its double height walls are wrapped with smooth glass panes and vertical silver frames to tie the two volumes together.
      “The two spaces of the upper volume that make up the new addition is a moment of clear but complementary contrast to the original flagship,” the studio added. “It is a symbolic ending to the building that reflects an evolved luxury experience that is more a journey than a destination.”

      The project is currently under construction and is expected to complete in Spring 2022.
      Shigematsu leads OMA New York with fellow partner Jason Long. The outpost is intended to function independently from the studio’s international offices, including Rotterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Australia, as part of an initiative of founder Rem Koolhaas.
      Last year the studio installed a multicoloured escalator inside the renovated Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
      Other recent projects by the New York office include a plan for the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington DC and a series of galleries inside Gio Ponti’s Denver Art Museum.

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      Architensions creates colourful Children's Playspace with plywood climbing frame and tunnel

      by

      New York studio Architensions has designed structures modeled on clouds, treehouses, tunnels and igloos for an indoor playground for children in Brooklyn.Called Children’s Playspace, the space was designed for a wellness professional who wanted an intimate play area for children.
      Architensions’ response was to create structures in different colours and shapes that could offer different sensory experiences based on natural landscapes.

      Among these is an eight-foot-tall (2.4-metre-tall) green cylinder, known as the Treehouse, which is composed of a stepped bottom and gridded top wrapped in mesh.

      The Tunnel meanwhile has a slanted, gridded exterior and arched opening carved through it that leads up steps and down a ramp. Geometric windows with colourful frames protrude from the exterior to offer views out and inside to the brightly coloured orange walls.

      “As designers, we had to challenge ourselves and ask a number of questions,” said Architensions co-principal Alessandro Orsini.
      “How can the built environment relate to children’s imagination, cognitive development, and aesthetic appeal? Is it possible to merge aesthetics and function for a space that appeals to children?”

      Another structure, called Igloo, has a circular white base and a suspended triangular top covered with semi-translucent washi paper.
      Architensions said the project took cues from other architect-designed playgrounds such as the structures architect Aldo van Eyck’s built in his series of of Amsterdam playscapes and the never-built Contoured Playground Japanese American artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi designed to encourage freeform play.

      “The goal is to iconise the forms to make them recognisable and welcoming for the children,” Orsini added. “And, at the same time, to create inspiring spaces where they will always feel in control of their environments.”
      ‘This environment allows them to assume different body postures, to create boundaries, and to manipulate and re-invent their surroundings,” added co-principal Nick Roseboro.

      Other playgrounds recently completed by architects and designs with bold forms include a colourful playground in Madrid designed by Aberrant Architecture and an open-air space made of geometric structures by French designer Olivier Vadrot.

      Olivier Vadrot designs sculptural outdoor playground for children

      In Children’s Playspace, all the plywood is sanded and clear stained, ​and covered in non-VOC (volatile organic compounds) natural stain paint, in order to make it safe for the children.

      Three cloud-like structures made from slats of white-painted foam also hang from in the 875-square-foot (81-square-metre) playground, while a soft tan-coloured rubber floor was chosen to reference a forest floor covered in pine needles.
      Some of the walls are draped with with a silky textile to look like water or sky, while another is covered in a mural of woodland.

      Children’s Playspace joins a number of projects Architensions, which has offices in New York and Rome, has completed in New York borough Brooklyn. They include the renovation and extension of a Brooklyn townhouse and a tiny writer’s studio.
      Photography is by Cameron Blaylock.

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      Worrell Yeung designs industrial artist studios in historic Brooklyn factory buildings

      by

      New York architecture studio Worrell Yeung has transformed historic factory buildings in Brooklyn Navy Yard into multi-use workspaces and artist studios featuring time-worn brick walls and weathered beams and columns.The adaptive reuse project involved remodelling 77 Washington, a six-storey former masonry factory built in the 1920s, and four other buildings situated around on the property.

      It is located at the corner of Washington Avenue and Park Avenue in Brooklyn Navy Yard, a former shipbuilding complex between the Dumbo and Williamsburg neighbourhoods undergoing regeneration.

      Worrell Yeung drew from the area’s historic architecture and the design of early 20th-century New York warehouses to update the 38,000-square-foot (3530.3-square-metre) multi-use art and office space.

      “The existing buildings were so rich with history and layered with texture that we wanted our design to highlight these found conditions while also updating to accommodate new uses and new programs,” said co-principal Max Worrell.

      A six-storey brick structure occupies the centre of the property, with a cluster of three one-storey buildings situated on its south end and a single garage unit located on the opposite side.
      On the main building the brick facade was left untouched, while the sides of the building are painted white.

      Storefronts situated along the street level were restored to house artist and photography studios. Each of the exteriors is painted dark blue and is fronted with large windows that flood natural light into the interiors.
      The low-lying structures are connected by a central courtyard filled with gravel and plants laid out by landscape firm Michael van Valkenburgh Associates. To form the outdoor patio and bike storage area the studio removed a roof that previously covered the space.

      In the garden three solid oak logs form a series of benches. Over the past decade a local shipbuilder gathered the reclaimed wood used for the seating following a number of storms in the region.
      Inside the materials and patterns are evocative of old Brooklyn factories and warehouses. The floors are covered with concrete and metal diamond plates.

      Macro Sea turns abandoned Brooklyn warehouse into New Lab co-working space

      Exposed brick walls coated with layers of old paint pair with structural wood columns and beams in the open-plan spaces, which include meeting rooms, a small kitchenette and a large lobby area.
      Brooklyn Navy Yard woodworker Bien Hecho repurposed timber floor joists from the building into a custom-built conference table and a bench.

      Steel grids installed across the elevator shaft windows are visible from the building’s exterior and match the pattern on the translucent glass and plywood walls located in the lobby.
      “These interventions are a nod to the aesthetics of storied factory buildings and Navy Yard warehouses, which historically featured grids in their sash windows, fencing, and ship docks,” added co-principal Jejon Yeung.

      Worrell Yeung was founded in 2014 by Max Worrell and Jejon Yeung. The studio has completed a number of renovation projects in New York City, including a loft in Chelsea and an apartment inside Dumbo’s Clocktower building.

      Other office projects in Brooklyn Navy Yard are a space for tech entrepreneurs located in a former warehouse renovated by New York developer Macro Sea and Marvel Architects and a new 16-storey co-working building by S9 Architecture.
      Photography is by Naho Kubota.

      Read more: More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      Ravi Raj and Evan Watts expose chunky timber in Spears Building Loft renovation

      by

      Architects Ravi Raj and Evan Watts have created a monolithic, concrete-like chimney in the overhaul of a loft apartment inside a former cigarette packing factory in New York City’s Chelsea neighbourhood. Raj, who runs RARARA, worked with Watts of D&A Companies to overhaul the residence in the former factory, which was completed by the Kinney Brothers in 1880. It also served as a furniture warehouse before it was converted into a condo building in 1996.

      Previously featuring “dark dwelling spaces”, as described by the team, the residence was renovated to create a bright and open living space for a couple.

      This included stripping out walls and dropped ceilings to create larger spaces and revealing existing brickwork and timber columns and beams.

      At the rear of the residence, the team reconfigured the layout of the bedrooms and bathrooms, creating a third bedroom and making a new hallway.

      “Extraneous millwork and partitions blocking daylight to the interior were thoughtfully removed to help open each room and improve the flow between them,” said Ravi Raj Architect.
      “The great room presented an unexpected discovery after the team removed the dropped ceilings and unnecessary wall enclosures, revealing the original heavy timber structure – in surprisingly great condition. This move both simplified the layout while also paying homage to the building’s historical fabric.”

      Throughout Spears Building Loft, the designers chose a soft and pale material palette that complements the existing details and also brightens the interiors.
      Bleached walnut planks covers the floor in the living area, while the walls and built-in storage are painted bright-white or yellow.

      Gold paint drips down green mural at Chelsea Pied-à-Terre by Stadt Architecture

      A wood-burning stove is updated with a hearth covered in a plaster that looks like concrete and extends into a bench either side. The team chose the render because it is meant to reference the warehouse’s poured concrete floors.

      Pale wood also forms the base of the white-marble island in the kitchen topped and old corner cabinets are ebonized black. They form a series of dark detail throughout, like the dark wooden dining chairs and artwork.
      “The owners took care in selecting minimal yet soft and textured furnishings paired with colourful art that highlight the industrial-like quality of the space,” the team added.

      The red brick is painted white in the bedrooms to make them all them light and bright, while the bathrooms display a mix of black, white and grey marbles.
      Spears Building Loft is located in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood next to the city’s elevated park, the High Line.
      Other renovation projects in the area include a residence that architecture duo BoND turned into a light-filled home with a stainless steel fireplace surround and an apartment with a green mural dripping in gold paint.
      Photography is by Nick Glimenakis.

      Read more: More