Domestic provisions such as these were possible only because Tankhouse and SO – IL dropped the sunless double-loaded corridor favored by local developers. The architects devised foyer-like alcoves-think of mudrooms without doors-where residents shed their sodden shoes and parkas or park their groceries on built-in resin benches as they feel around for house keys. (Iwan Baan)įor instance, every apartment faces at least two directions, with front doors positioned around the court. At a little over 50,000 square feet, 450 Warren is an abbreviated take on the idea, even as it throws in a few twists, enough to earn it a win in the Residential-Multi-unit category in AN’s 2022 Best of Design Awards. Exceptions can be found in historically wealthy pockets of Manhattan (London Terrace Gardens in Chelsea being the pinnacle of the type) or in the early garden suburbs of Queens, where block-spanning quadrangles were reduced in height and largely denuded of the ornament lavished on their city counterparts. “In this case, it’s close to 50 percent.” Stacked courtyards are an anomalous condition in New York. “Typically, residential developments here will have an efficiency of 80 percent,” Mendez said, referring to building-efficiency ratios that balance leasable or sellable space against the overall floor area. Conceived as a set, the projects spurn the pro forma thinking that characterizes New York City housing. 450 Warren is the first of four collaborations between Tankhouse and SO – IL to be completed. Mendez is an architect and cofounder of Tankhouse, the start-up developer behind the building he lives on the fourth floor. “At first, I worried that people were going to clutter the surface with decorations,” said Sebastian Mendez, with a chuckle. This past holiday season, residents took to pinning festive accoutrements to the mesh, from ghost dolls and spiders for Halloween to Christmas wreaths. Slicked with rain, the veil acquires a beguiling sheen. The effect can be uncanny, particularly on a summer day, when sunlight shimmers across its surface. Paradoxically stiff yet blousy, the cable netting modulates the character of the shared court, and thus of the complex as a whole. Entries to individual units are accompanied by vestibules that sport circular, inset doormats. The cable netting both protects residents and screens off planted zones. Wire-mesh drapery affixed to the sides of these thin concrete footbridges obviates the need for railings even as it hints at a certain danger. Three buildings are arranged around an open-air space, with the far ends of the floor plates connected by slinking gangways. What at first seemed a dry polemic about archetypal representations of mass is a lucid, well-executed proposition for a new kind of urban housing. (Iwan Baan)īut step through the entry gate (placed off to the side, on Warren), and the architecture suddenly slackens. The angled block cladding creates variable textures and shadows as the light changes throughout the day. At a compositional level, the cubic cladding is relieved by deadpan punched windows and balconies, and at a microscopic level, the terrazzo-like green flecks mixed into the aggregate work to soften the building’s image. SO – IL’s elemental, Minecraft-like massing is accentuated by the uniform surfacing of concrete blocks, gathered into tight vertical bands that are slightly offset and angled from one another. The five-story development, though puny compared with the vertiginous public-housing complex across Bond Street, affects a low-key defensive posture, not unlike the priggish rowhouses lining the rest of Warren Street. Judging from appearances, this climatic permissiveness can come as a little surprising.
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