Double House is a 6,500 gut-renovation of a single-family duplex apartment in a 1920s tower facing Central Park. But, to call this a renovation is an understatement. In reality it was nothing short of the construction of an entirely new building at extreme tolerances within the framework of the old one. Entire structural bays were opened between the two floors, allowing for the insertion of two new architectural stairs. Partitions on the lower floor were swept away to form an open plan that hosts large social gatherings alongside the client’s substantial art collection, while the upper floor was entirely rearticulated into a series of intimate residential suites for the family — a double house with two functions, two centers and two architectural expressions, tightly set within its context, sparing not an inch and giving nothing of its presence away to the street.

At the center of the interdisciplinary team’s design philosophy was the total integration of all elements of the house’s function with the architectural finishes; the total elision of the traditional layers of structure, systems, partitions, casework, finishes and furniture. Access to electrical, data/control, plumbing and HVAC are integrated with richly finished wood paneling, which in turn blends seamlessly with cabinetry and wall finish. Every piece of loose furniture was developed in collaboration with interior designers Leroy Street Studio and detailed in-house to mirror and even physically interface with the architecture. Near the end of the process, I developed a fully-custom wine cooler, delving into the physics of refrigeration, the details of thermal envelope and finally the digitally-assisted serial fabrication of a modular wine racking system ripe for future mass-production.

All of this was accomplished by intensive coordination. In order for the whole to work as designed, the tolerances of even hidden work like drain piping and structural steel reinforcement were kept to a minimum. the architecture team worked daily with all of the building trades throughout construction to map out ducting, finding ways to snake around roof-drain risers and hold as tight to the existing structural slabs as possible, keeping ceilings high and flat. We worked through five mock-ups of flooring details until we achieved 3,250 square feet of continuous, monolithic terrazzo floor, base and seating with bronze expansion joints. Revision after revision, we developed a 40-page shop drawing set for the all-wood stair hall, integrating manufactured lighting, HVAC supply, doors, cabinetry, a cantilevered staircase, and a fire-rated elevator shaft.

1st Dibs