Cool Listings, Midtown West, Quirky Homes

Funky $995K Midtown penthouse was made from a mechanical room and a shipping container

Listing photos courtesy of The Corcoran Group

The vision of award-winning design studio LOT-EK, this Midtown West penthouse is truly unique. The main living area was transformed from the building’s former mechanical room, and it’s topped off by a bedroom suite created from a 20-foot shipping container. The whole industrial-style interior features concrete walls and exposed steel pipes and beams, and it’s all surrounded by a lush wrap-around terrace overlooking the Empire State Building. Located at 31 West 31st Street, it’s on the market for the first time since it was built in 1996, and it’s asking $995,000.

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Art, Green Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design

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

Mary Mattingly, shipping container construction, Swale, floating park, floating garden, food forest,

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.

Daily Link Fix

Daily Link Fix: The Javits’ Massive Rooftop Garden; What’s The Best Way To Get Around The City?

urban rooftop, garden rooftop, green roof, javitz center, jacob javitz, javitz center in chelsea

LOT-EK’s Shipping Container Cargotecture: WebUrbanist rounds up LOT-EK’s unique stacked container designs, one of which shows NYC’s Pier 57 as s Superpier, a 70,000-square-foot open-air, year-around food and retail market
Betcha Didn’t Know This Fun Fact About the Javits: There’s a massive rooftop garden on top of the convention center in Chelsea. Inhabitat NYC has the details.
Apple Holds On Tight To Its Glass Cube Store Design: The iconic design for the big-tech company’s flagship store on Fifth is now patented. Though they filed it back in 2012, Gizmodo reports that they just got the go this week.
The Best Way To Get Around The City: Thrillist claims riding a bike is the best way, but with crazy drivers and the police ready to give tickets to whoever doesn’t use the bike lanes (even if they’re blocked), we think we’ll stick with the train and bus.

Images: Javits Center courtsey of Inhabitat NYC; Woman riding a bike via yourdon‘s Flickr