Architecture And Design

September 2, 2015

Giant LEGO Blocks Let You Build Anything from a Coffee Table to an Entire Room

We've seen our fair share of adult LEGO projects, including architecturally themed sets of blocks, a full scale model of New York City, and even an entire bedroom made of 20,000 of the colorful modules. But none of these endeavors have quite the versatility of EverBlock, giant LEGOs that can be used to build tables, chairs, walls, and even full rooms and structures. As the company explains, "Anything you've constructed can be taken apart and re-assembled again, and the pieces can be re-used to build other objects, making EverBlock a unique green building method."
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September 2, 2015

Bed-Stuy Brownstone With Its Historic Details Intact Asks $1.9 Million

By Emily Nonko

The days of finding an affordable historic brownstone in Brooklyn are long gone. Today, brownstones–like this one at 348 Gates Avenue in Bed-Stuy–are priced into the millions. Because the home has much of its historic interior details intact, like mantles, high ceilings and the original hardwood floors, it's especially pricey for the neighborhood, with an asking price of $1.9 million. It's also in a convenient area of the neighborhood, bordering Clinton Hill and off the main drag of Franklin Avenue. So, will this brownstone achieve its high ask?
See more to decide

September 1, 2015

Fresh Futon From KARUP Is Fashionable, Functional and a Perfect Fit for Guests

By Rebecca Paul

Everybody wants to visit NYC, and as most New Yorkers know from firsthand experience, whether you like it or not, the couch often ends up being a crash pad for friends and family. That's why we love KARUP's Fresh Futon; not only does it provide a comfy place to relax after the daily grind, but it's also the perfect bed for out-of-town guests. Plus, unlike the futons you slept on in college, this one's actually stylish.
more on this fantastic design here

September 1, 2015

Loft Renovation in DUMBO’s Eagle Warehouse Building Is Playful and Strategic

By Rebecca Paul

This playfully decorated loft is located in DUMBO's landmarked Eagle Warehouse Building. Although the space has always been generous in square footage, prior to the renovation the original residence only had two small windows and very little natural light. To open up and brighten the home, Etelamaki Architecture removed the kitchen walls and introduced various design treatments to increase the presence of natural light and to define distinct functional spaces.
Check out the rest of the loft

August 31, 2015

The UWS Apartment Babe Ruth Once Called Home Is Selling for $1.595M

By Diane Pham

This apartment may not look like much, but baseball greatness once slept within its walls. The Upper West Side abode Babe Ruth called home at the end of his epic career is now on the market for $1.595 million. According to the Post, an open house held this weekend at the 345 West 88th Street address drew in over 50 people—a mix of folks looking buy, and surely those simply hoping for a glimpse into The Bambino's former digs.
More inside the Sultan of Swat's former home

August 31, 2015

Whimsical Map Colorfully Details 400+ New York Icons

By Diane Pham

A couple weeks ago we dug up a map from the 1950s that offered up a mind-boggling menagerie of all things New York. With over 300 points of interest hand-illustrated in painstaking detail, we found ourselves overtaken with with awe. Now, comes yet another marvelous map courtesy of Rafael Esquer, founder of Soho’s Alfalfa Studio. His stunning depiction—aptly named Iconic New York™— is made up of over 400 hand-drawn city icons. A labor of love, the piece took Esquer an incredible two-and-a-half years to complete.
more on iconic New York™ here

Dattner Architects’ Prismatic, Concrete Salt Shed Reveals Itself

Rendering of the Spring Street Salt Shed courtesy of Dattner Architects

August 31, 2015

Dattner Architects’ Prismatic, Concrete Salt Shed Reveals Itself

By Ondel Hylton

Summer is coming to a close, and in a few months we'll be navigating the city's treacherous streets perfecting our penguin waddles and fine-tuning our black ice magna-vision. This winter season, downtown Manhattan residents may find a sliver of comfort knowing that the rock salt used to mitigate slippery streets will be stored in one of the most grandiose salt sheds on Earth. Recently unshrouded, the Department of Sanitation's 67-foot-tall Spring Street Salt Shed flaunts a prismatic concrete facade evoking the intriguing faceted forms of salt crystals. The award-winning design, crafted by the public works masters at Dattner Architects and WXY Architecture + Urban Design, comes with a sizable price tag of $10 million. The structure was crowned the "Taj Mahal of Salt" back in 2010, noting that it cost more than nine recently constructed city salt sheds combined. Nevertheless, even in its unpolished state, we have to admit this riverfront iceberg is pretty captivating. And despite its utilitarian use, its form is well-worthy of its prime Hudson Square locale.
More renderings and info right this way

August 31, 2015

BSC Architecture Simplifies a Park Slope Brownstone Redesign Through Subtraction

By Rebecca Paul

This 1899 Park Slope brownstone underwent an extensive renovation inspired by its new owners' desire to recreate their previous living space. Their former home was an airy, light-filled space with small private bedrooms adjacent to large communal areas, fostering a sense of family cohesion and intimacy. Unfortunately, their vision was contradictory to the existing Brooklyn structure. But these types of challenges can be a designer's greatest motivator, and the team from BSC Architecture took the test head on. Drawing inspiration from the words of Gordon Matta Clark, "a response to cosmetic design; completion through removal; completion through collapse; completion through emptiness,” the redesign was realized through a process of strategic removal.
More on this clever project here

August 31, 2015

Stay Warm with this Cool Brooklyn Map Wool Blanket

By Rebecca Paul

When you live in a place that's as exciting and culturally diverse as Brooklyn, neighborhood pride comes with the territory. This cool throw from UncommonGoods features a graphic vintage map of the beloved borough, and is the perfect accessory for giving your hood props, while also adding some cool new threads to your home decor.
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August 31, 2015

Revealed: Floor Plans and Pricing for Jean Nouvel’s MoMA Tower

By Dana Schulz

After progress crept along for nearly ten years, Jean Nouvel's highly anticipated MoMA Tower, officially known as 53W53, is now inching closer to the finish line. A year ago we got a peak at unofficial penthouse floorplans, and the first interior renderings were revealed in February, followed by a pre-sales-launch video of the interiors in May. Now, the Post has uncovered floorplans and pricing for three of the units in the 1,050-foot, 82-story asymmetrical tower. They include a 3,846-square-foot, 55th-floor three-bedroom asking $21.7 million; a smaller 55th-floor three-bedroom for $14.42 million; and a 4,362-square-foot, 72nd-floor three-bedroom duplex going for $39.2 million.
More floorplans and pricing

A Price Cut for a Gated Mansion in Jamaica Estates, Queens

By Emily Nonko

Yes, you can live in a 6,500-square-foot, five bedroom mansion right in New York City. It's here, at 184-15 Hovendon Road in Jamaica Estates, Queens. The neighborhood is known for its large plots and spacious freestanding homes, but this property takes it to the next level. Not only is it gated in, but the interior is awash in marble, coffered ceilings and Venetian plaster walls. It's got a new asking price since it first hit the market last year, with a price chop down from $3.488 million to $3.388 million.
Check out this interior

August 30, 2015

Sensual HALO Lamp Waits for a Gentle Human Touch to Turn On

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

HALO is an object that appeals to our most basic instincts. It has no visible controls such as a dimmer or a switch. Designed by Icelandic designer Kjartan Oskarsson, this sculptural, minimal lamp requires a gentle human touch to brighten up. Simply tug on one of the strings to light up a room.
Learn more about the brilliant HALO Lamp

August 28, 2015

New Renderings of Fisher Brothers’ Curvy Murray Hill Rental at 225 East 39th Street

By Ondel Hylton

It's always a pleasure when a hulking above-ground parking garage bites the dust; this is not Miami after all, take the subway! And thanks to the legendary real estate firm Fisher Brothers, a soul-crushing 705-car parking garage at 225 East 39th Street was razed last year in preparation for an elegant 36-story rental tower. New renderings posted on the development firm's website illustrate how the tower may bring a bit of pizzazz to a rather un-glamorous section of Murray Hill. With completion scheduled for spring 2017, groundwork is well underway with sections of the foundation slab poured and steel rebar projecting skyward.
More on the project ahead

August 27, 2015

Here Is New York City Transformed Into a Colorful (Scale) Landscape of LEGO Blocks

By Diane Pham

Click here for a bigger version >> LEGO has for years been turning NYC landmarks into scale models that allow us to enjoy their architectural splendor at a more human scale. But here's an artist that's morphed the entire island of Manhattan, its surrounding boroughs, and all of its structures into a trippy visualization that lets us take in the city's topography from another vantage.
More on the image here

August 27, 2015

Construction Update: Loggia-Crowned Condominium Finally Rises Next to Bryant Park

By Ondel Hylton

Bryant Park is one of the city's most cherished spaces, providing a much-needed oasis from the stone and glass canyons of Midtown. But debuting in 2017, a mixed-use tower will grant home buyers their first opportunity to purchase condos directly alongside the ten-acre respite. Simply named the Bryant, the 200,000-square-foot building at 16 West 40th Street will house 57 condo units perched 200 feet above a five-star boutique hotel within the tower's lower levels. The 32-story, 361-foot-high building is being developed by the very-active HFZ Capital, led by Ziel Friedman, and is designed by renowned British architect David Chipperfield, with Stonehill & Taylor serving as the architects of record.
More details ahead

August 27, 2015

Ultra Minimal Long Island Home Blurs the Lines Between Indoor and Outdoor

By Emily Nonko

If you're going to live in the middle of nature in Amagansett, a hamlet on the south shore of Long Island, you want to be reminded of the beautiful outdoors as much as possible. That seems to be the inspiration behind this home built by the architecture firm Levenbetts, who designed this property for a couple and their teenage children. It's been dubbed the 36SML House and was designed as three connected wings—a wing for the couple, another wing for their kids, and yet another one for guests. A driveway cuts through the middle of the home, and there's a roof deck (with amphitheater seating!) on top. Each wing of the house also creates separate courtyard spaces to accommodate parking space, a vegetable garden, and a play area with a swimming pool. Thoroughly impressed by the exterior?
Now check out the interior

August 27, 2015

REVEALED: First Look at Thor Equities’ Retail Jewel Box in Williamsburg

By Ondel Hylton

Last August, Joseph Sitt's Thor Equities purchased a string of Williamsburg properties for nearly $22 million with the intent of replacing the gritty row with a 10,000-square-foot retail jewel box. Now, Thor's website gives us our first look at what the prime property at the southeast corner of Berry and North 6th Streets may hold. The two renderings presented of 124-136 North 6th Street reveal a sleek, two-story building clad in brick and glass that could potentially house a half-dozen boutique retailers. According to the Observer, who first reported the deal last October, Thor is seeking a retail showroom and/or restaurant tenants. Above the spaces, the building may be topped with a gardened roof deck enclosed in trellises.
More details

August 26, 2015

This Dramatic Downtown Triplex Loft Tells the Story of a Neighborhood’s Creative Past

By Michelle Cohen

Even from a glance at its facade, you could guess that 508 LaGuardia Place is a unique and historic structure. Located within the South Village Historic District, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation called it "perhaps the finest example of industrial architecture of the late 19th Century in the South Village." The available 5,000 square-foot, four bedroom upper triplex would be well-utilized as a live/work space, suitable for "tech or fashion companies to use as a work space that impresses." And you may indeed need startup funding to swing the $30K per month rent. The Romanesque Revival-style building has a history of creative residents that parallels the neighborhood's evolution through the second half of the 20th century. Built in 1891 as the H. H. Upham Company sign factory, the story of 508 LaGuardia Place is the story of Soho and Tribeca through the years when artists and photographers worked and lived in cavernous former factories and warehouses and did the heavy lifting required to carve out amazing spaces for themselves.
Find out how this former industrial building tells the story of the surrounding neighborhoods

August 26, 2015

City’s Next Floating Park May Be a Giant Food Forest

By Dana Schulz

It seems the way to create new public spaces in New York these days is to float them in the rivers. First there was the +Pool, then Pier55, and now we introduce to you Swale, a floating food forest that may grace our waters next summer. The New York Observer reports that artist Mary Mattingly is looking to embark on the project, which will "be created with collaborators and built from repurposed shipping containers, will stretch 50 feet across and will feature a gangway entrance, walkways, and an edible forest garden." The floating garden will move around to different docks in the harbor to serve various communities. Local students and gardeners are working on a wetland plant base that will filter the river water to help grow edible plants.
More on the project ahead

August 26, 2015

POLL: Should We Rip Out Times Square’s Pedestrian Plazas?

By Dana Schulz

New Yorkers can’t stop talking about Mayor de Blasio’s idea to rip out Times Square’s pedestrian plazas, just six years after they were put in place under the Bloomberg administration. As a way to rid the tourist destination of “jiggly panhandlers,” both the Mayor and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton have suggested opening Times Square back up to […]

August 26, 2015

Handel Architects’ Luxurious ‘Amalfi’ Condo Tower Will Now Be Swanky Senior Living Pads

By Ondel Hylton

Here's a closer look at Handel Architects' design of a would-have-been condominium tower at 305 East 93rd Street, named The Amalfi. The five-parcel site located at the northeast corner of Second Avenue and East 93rd Street in Yorkville was slated to be developed by Merchants Hospitality until they recently bowed out to a senior living developer, Maplewood. Handel Architects' energetic design of staggering double-height windows, deeply set within a concrete frame was planned to rise a sheer 29-stories above Second Avenue. A lower four-story wing along 93rd Street would have been topped by an outdoor swimming pool. The tower's structural dynamism recalls the firm's recently finished rental tower, 170 Amsterdam on the Upper West Side, that flaunts a diagrid concrete exoskeleton. While the firm will remain the building's designers, it is unclear how much of the shown condominium design will be retained. Considering the project will now be re-tinkered for senior living, we're expecting a little less Amalfi and a bit more Fort Myers.
Find out more here

August 26, 2015

Construction Update: Perch Harlem, Manhattan’s First Passive House Rental Building, Rises

By Ondel Hylton

A tipster has alerted us that Manhattan's first market-rate rental building built to passive house standards has reached street level. Dubbed Perch Harlem, the soon-to-be-seven-story structure is located in the uppermost reaches of Harlem's Hamilton Heights section at 542 West 153rd Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues. "Perched"on a ridge 150 feet above sea level, the site overlooks the bucolic grounds of Trinity Cemetery, which is the only active burial ground on the island. The project's forward-thinking developers, the Synapse Development Group with its investment partner Taurus Investment Holdings, purchased the 10,000-square-foot former parking lot back in December of 2013 and have since been growing their Perch brand of passive house buildings that focus on low-impact living and community-oriented design. A second Perch building is slated for Williamsburg at 646 Lorimer Street.
Find out more about Perch Harlem

August 25, 2015

Construction Ramps Up on Far West Side Mega-Rental at the Foot of Bjarke’s Ski Slope

By Ondel Hylton

Site excavation continues on TF Cornerstone's (TFC) mammoth 42-story rental development at 606 West 57th Street between Eleventh Avenue and the West Side Highway. Midtown's 57th Street has become synonymous with superlative titles, with the tallest, the thinnest, most expensive, and, arguably, some of the most exciting high-rises the city has seen in decades. At the far west end of the two-mile thoroughfare, TFC has joined in on the megalomania with a 1,028-unit, 1.2 million-square-foot rental building that will become the second largest apartment building in the city after Moinian's SKY project a few blocks south.
More details ahead

New Renderings Revealed for Garden-Topped High Line Jardim Condos

Renderings via New York YIMBY.

August 24, 2015

New Renderings Revealed for Garden-Topped High Line Jardim Condos

By Michelle Cohen

A new full set of renderings has surfaced from New York YIMBY revealing designs for the West Chelsea condominium project at 527 West 27th Street known as Jardim. The High Line-adjacent project, designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, is being developed by Centaur Properties and Greyscale Development Group.
See the latest renderings

August 24, 2015

Preston Scott Cohen Builds a Brilliant Upstate Home from an Old Dutch Barn

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

To create the beautiful Goodman House, architect Preston Scott Cohen had to transport, restore and re-assemble a Dutch barn frame at a new location in Pine Plains, NY. The structure affords an unpolished but warm atmosphere with open-plan interiors wrapped in an industrial skin. The space was crafted to follow the client's desire for an "excessively lit space" with an "undivided interior," and as such, the home uses an ample number of slide-up screens and roll-down glass doors to make way for an open abode with a modern aesthetic.
Learn more about this contemporary barn-home

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