Project Details
- Project Name
- Upper East Side Townhouse
- Architect
- Michael K Chen Architecture
- Project Types
- Single Family
- Project Scope
- Renovation/Remodel
- Size
- 9,600 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2017
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Project Status
- Built
2017 Residential Architect Design Awards
Renovation | Award
Restoring an 1879 New York City townhouse that had been divided into 17 apartments to its original status as a single-family residence was a challenge for local firm Michael K Chen Architecture. The landmarked Upper East Side Townhouse required a great deal of reconstruction, which allowed the designers to completely reconceive the home’s interiors and backyard landscaping for contemporary living. The renovation of the 9,600-square-foot house included the insertion of a new steel-and-concrete structure and an expanded footprint at the rear.
Creating visual and spatial connections between floors was important to the designers, as was re-establishing the grand proportions that were part of the building’s original design. Two new sculptural stairs were inserted and double as lightwells that carry daylight throughout the seven stories, including a finished basement and new rooftop addition.
Conceiving the architecture, interiors, and landscape design together, the architects chose to emphasize the interplay between technology and artistry to establish a forward-looking residence that integrated its historical context in a meaningful way. Highly crafted details are used throughout—a tribute to the original design’s Neo-Grec origins—but created through digital means of design, coordination, and fabrication. And they caught the attention of the jury: “This is a mind-bogglingly beautifully detailed, clear, and creative project,” David Baker said.
Innovative applications of terra-cotta display another noteworthy nod to tradition and invention: Crumbling brownstone on the house’s front façade was replaced with a custom terra-cotta material developed with specialty aggregates to simulate quarried brownstone—a first in New York City. Tiles of the material line a stairwell wall, and extruded and wire-struck terra-cotta units that yield a feathered, undulating texture form a rainscreen on the rear façade.
Visit ARCHITECT to see the rest of the winners of the 2017 Residential Architect Design Awards.
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
Originally built as a single family home in 1879, the landmarked Neo-Grec brownstone had since been divided into 17 apartments with a sagging and badly degraded structure. We reconstructed the building, carefully inserting a new 9500 sf steel and concrete structure, expanding the building’s footprint, and creating opportunities for light, air, and circulation to enliven the interior and exterior. An elevator and sculptural new stairs were added, along with generous floor openings and glazed double height spaces that emphasize the building’s grand proportions and create visual and spatial connections between floors. The interplay between technology and artistry is an organizing principle behind the design of the project, from architecture to interiors to landscape design. One of the richest challenges was to bond the desire for a contemporary, forward looking residence to the history of the building and its context in a meaningful way. This is accomplished primarily through an exceptional attention to craft, augmented by digital methods for design, coordination, and collaboration. The machine-produced decoration and crisp, incised ornamental surfaces that are characteristic of the Neo-Grec style were projected forward to a contemporary context, informing current and forward-looking processes of making like computer controlled milling and other contemporary manufacturing methods. Innovative use of terra cotta is employed throughout the project, including custom ram-pressed tile in the double height stair hall, and most notably in the building's primary facades. The Landmarked but crumbling front facade was restored using a custom terra cotta material developed with specialty aggregates to simulate quarried brownstone, which is no longer available. This is a new use that has never been before approved by the New York City Landmarks Commission. At the rear of the building, a glazed terra cotta rain screen was developed using extruded and wire-struck units that yield a feathered, undulating texture. A vertical garden, developed in conjunction with the landscape architect and conservation botanists is also integrated in the rear facade. Comprised of custom slip-cast elements with a mist-driven irrigation system, the vertical garden facade is designed to create optimal largely passive environmental conditions for a series of native plant species, some of which are listed Federal Endangered Species due to the loss of their native habitat. The facade is a test case in urban conservation gardening and aesthetics, thoroughly integrated into the building. Throughout the interior, works of design by emerging and independent American designers and studios is integrated with significant works of modernist design from Italy, Scandinavia, and the United States. Much of the contemporary furniture was custom designed for the house primarily through designer commissions, including a number of custom pieces by the architect.