27 Wooster Street

Currently a parking lot, the site is at the edge of the Soho Cast Iron Historic District. As Soho has been in constant transition for at least 30 years, the design must negotiate the changing demographics of Soho as well as its historical context.

The skin of the building is a 21st Century version of historic cast iron facades found in the district. Those facades were originally designed to provide maximum light and air for manufacturing. Like the architects of the 19th Century we use contemporary materials, factory-assembled and shipped to site. We emulate the slender proportions of the historic buildings, which offer ideal layouts for contemporary occupancies, joint living and working.
In the early sketches we developed the idea of taking the 19th Century Cast-Iron facade and turning it "inside-out." All the articulation and proportions present in the district would be present here, too, but on the inside of the building.

As industry started to move out of SoHo, the open, continuous spaces and abundant light of lofts (as well as the New York real estate market) brought artists in. They created a new kind of dwelling, loft-living. The proposal is designed with an understanding that there is a relationship between the façades and the spaces behind them. The elevator opens directly onto an undivided space, whose specification and differentiation is left to the inhabitant.