Two residences in New York / Gage Clemenceau

While visiting Gage Clemenceau Architects we learned about their design process and research on building new forms through diverse design strategies that range from the use of automotive design software to a heavy reliance on robotic digital fabrication tools.

This time we bring you two residences in New York by Gage Clemenceau - Mark Foster Gage & Marc Clemenceau Bailly.

Residence in SOHO

Griffin Residence

In the past decade architectural design has become increasingly reliant on the limited form-making tools offered in standardized architectural software packages. In order to overcome such limitations Gage / Clemenceau Architects proposes a new model of design research that creates collaborations with other disciplines of design. The sole purpose of such research is to discover innovative methods for creating, manipulating, and fabricating new genres of form for potential use in architecture. Both the institutional and residential projects of the firm capitalize on these alliances, often involving diverse design strategies that range from the use of automotive design software to a heavy reliance on robotic digital fabrication tools.

The products of these collaborations posit that the geometric, indexical, mapping, and performance based ambitions of the digitally produced architectures of the past decade have failed to yield the intended results. Instead of relying on these, now conventional, architectural fictions for legitimacy, the work examines the emerging interest in formal aesthetics as a vehicle by which architecture can seek engage a new and vibrantly altered 21st century cultural context. In place of the semiological crutches of the index, the icon, and the symbol, the research revels instead in the emerging formal positions such as the beautiful, cute, elegant, sensuous and lovely.

Metal Shutter Houses / Shigeru Ban

Starchitects are all over New York, giving an extra value to new condos in Manhattan. A few months ago i visted the Herzog & de Meuron and Bernard Tschumi projects on the lower east side, and they looked quite impressive. While most people didn’t liked the Tschumi’s Blu Condo, despite it’s iconic image, i had mixed feelings with HdM’s 40 Bond St.

But on West Chelsea a new 9 unit condo is under construction, designed by japanese Shigeru Ban. The project is located on the south side of West 19th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in West Chelsea’s art gallery district, right next to the High Line, the Hudson River Park, Ghery´s IAC Building and Jean Nouvel´s 100 11th.

On this building, Shigeru Ban once again innovates on the material use by incorporating motorized perforated metal shutters on its -dynamic- facade, which act as light-modulating privacy screen at the outer edge of each residence’s terrace adjacent to the double-height living rooms.

From their website: This subtle “removable skin” echoes the neighboring gallery after-hours shutters, subtly contextualizing the building within its site. The building can literally become a uniform minimal cube, or it can open completely (as well as virtually unlimited permutations between). South of the loggia, twenty foot tall, upwardly pivoting glass walls open completely, thus blurring the boundary between the inside and outside – the double height living room and loggia become one. Similarly, a series of interior sliding glass doors create an open “universal floor” in each of the duplex houses – one vast and uninterrupted expanse which transitions seamlessly from inside to outside, or partition the space into private areas.

Penthouse view, with Ghery´s IAC on the background

Cantilevered kitchen sink designed by Ban

Double height living room

Lower level plan

DVF Studio Headquarters / Work AC

Work AC shared with us another project built in Manhattan, the Diane von Furstenberg HQ in TriBeca. An amazing renewal of an historic building. The light use is accented by the use of hanging crystals. I personally like the landscaping on the rooftop, wich reminds me of the High Line passing nearby. You can also see the new The Standard hotel in the back, which is actually being built over the High Line.

Architect: WORK AC - Amale Andraos & Dan Wood
Location: New York, USA
Design Period: June 2004 to February 2005
Demolition Period: February 2005 to February 2006
Construction Period: February 2006 to June 2007
Project Architects: Silvia Fuster, Eckart Graeve, Michael Chirigos
Design Team: Mirza Mujezinovic, Kirsten Krogh, Rune Elsgart, Christina Kwak, Andrew Sinclair, Brendan Kelly, Marc El Khouri, Judith Tse, Lamare Wimberly, Benjamin Cadena, Dana Strasser, Tina Diep, Jacob Lund, Erin Hunt, Martin Hensen Krogh, Martin Laursen, Dayoung Shin, Sylvanus Shaw, Forrest Jesse, Queenie Tong, Christo Logan, Fred Awty, Elliet Spring, Anna Kenoff.
Structural Engineering: Goldstein and Associates
Mechanical Engineering: Athwal Associates (main building) / Syska Hennessy (penthouse)
General Contractor: Americon
Crystals, Research and Development: D. Swarovski & Co.
Client: Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) Studio
New Building Area: 2,790 sqm
Budget: US $28,000,000
Photographs: Elizabeth Felicella

The headquarters building for Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) Studio, a fashion design company, is a new, six-story structure built behind two landmarked facades in New York City’s Meatpacking District. The building houses the company’s flagship store, a 5,000 SF flexible showroom/event space, design and administrative offices for a 120-person staff, an executive suite, and a private penthouse apartment.
The project’s diverse program is unified through a singular iconic gesture: a stairway that collects and distributes light from the roof through to the deepest interior parts of the building. This shaft of light is conceived of as an inhabitable and connective “stairdelier” - a cross between stair and chandelier - that cuts diagonally up from the ground floor to the “diamond”, a faceted glass penthouse.

In order to maximize natural light, a series of heliostat mirrors were installed within the diamond. The primary mirror, facing south, tracks the sun throughout the day, reflecting it to a fixed secondary mirror that beams the sunlight down the stair, always at the same angle. Tertiary mirrors along the stair’s length further direct the light onto the stair’s guardrail - vertical steel cables that are structurally braced with Swarovski glass crystals. The crystals also help disperse the light to each floor.

A series of three double-height spaces follow the stairdelier as it makes its way through the building, providing spatial variety to the relatively generic office floors and providing flexibility, allowing the building to transform for special events, parties, and performances. The first of these is the lobby, where the stair widens to create a dramatic presence and Ms. Von Furstenberg’s art collection is displayed around a long reflecting pool. On the showroom floor, a second double-height space can accommodate 100 people as a small black-box theater. In addition, the showroom’s display racks are designed to roll away to create space for events.

The building is within the Gansevoort Market Historic District and the DVF Studio Headquarters was hailed by the New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission as a “new model of adaptive reuse for the city.” Instead of hiding new elements behind the historic facades, the project is conceived of as a dialogue between contemporary materials and the renovated elements, making visible both the building’s past and its future.

The ground floor is 11′-6″ high panels of clear tempered glass set behind the existing cast iron columns in order to emphasize the distinction between the new and old. Within, the store is designed as “wrap” wall containing all the display fixtures that winds its way diagonally across the ground floor, paralleling horizontally the stairdelier’s diagonal vertical cut through the building. The “wrap” incorporates a luxury room, the cash-wrap area, and a series of three dressing rooms within it.

In order to ensure quality, ease coordination and expedite the construction process, a number of elements of the building were created remotely and assembled on-site. The diamond penthouse was built in Olot, Spain from solid steel members that were shipped in containers and bolted together in place. The stairdelier was made from precast concrete and was dropped by crane into the building after the steel framing was up. Similarly, the store fixtures and walls were manufactured off site and then completely installed in less than a week.

The building contains many sustainable elements, including geothermal heating and cooling via three wells, 1500-feet deep. By using the heliostat mirrors, the crystals, and ancillary mirrors to bring daylight through the building, the use of artificial light is limited. In addition, at night the stairdelier is lit with energy-efficient LED lights that consume far less energy than normal accent lighting. A green roof terrace at the sixth floor has been planted with native grasses and wildflowers.

Because of the tight floor heights, a large number of very small heat pump air conditioners were utilized within the ceiling cavity, creating a very efficient system. This essentially zones the AC so that people working in one area can have their windows open or the AC off while others have the AC on. Recycled materials were used as often as possible, including the corrugated glass canopy, which is made from glass salvaged from the Philadelphia Naval Yard.