Third Avenue Charter School

CHARTER SCHOOL - south bronx

This is a six story new ground up construction on third Avenue in the Bronx, New York. Architectural program consists of 23 classrooms, various art, music, multipurpose rooms, a large cafeteria, kitchen, a gymnasium with basket ball court and accessory offices and administrative areas. Simple monolithic materials were used on the building facade to work within a specific project budget, the building is asymmetrically balanced on the corner lot.

The building is analogous in its context in the use of forms and material, the facade expresses a sequence of order of scales. Sequential facade elements establish sequential relationship with the surrounding physical context of the site, the building ‘fits’ into the the hierarchical whole of the block.

Third Avenue Charter School

charter school - south bronx

Large massing at the building top houses the school gymnasium with a full size basket ball court. To reduce the imposing building mass, lighter facade material and color were used and the exterior walls are recessed from the streets on both side of the corner lot.

Herbert Street Condominium

exterior

Three story ground up residential building with a legal basement level in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, it has a total of eight dwelling units. The living space and bedroom in each dwelling unit is expressively distinguished on the building facade.

interior

The building is designed with a mix of unit types, double height living rooms are provided in the first floor dwelling units. Large window walls on the building envelope and lotline windows give abundant natural light to the interior.

Quincy Street Condominium

Legitimate twins?

Four story new residential construction with a penthouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. The building has six dwelling units. The building envelope is cladded with face bricks at the top levels and aluminium panels on the lower floors, creating a textual contrast and discontinunity on the facade, yet the facade elements are related in scale.

Expansive window walls span the entire width across the interior spaces, the window mullions continue the rhythm of the street block. The entire street wall of the building is recessed from the front lotline to align with adjcant buildings and allow for a small planted area in the open front yard.

Apparently another developer likes the design so much that there is an identical building in the immediate adjacent…

Lafayette Avenue Condominium

urban in-fill

The building structure was designed as an urban in-fill in an interior lot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, it is a four story residential building with penthouse containing six dwelling units.

The three dominance vertical masonry walls on the building facade signify the building’s main entrance as well as symbolically and expressively re-create the boundaries for the in-fill structure.

The building massing and facade elements juxtapose with adjacent buildings in scale and proportion, unify the building with the existing street block.

MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT

mixed use commercial and community facility building

New 10 story ground-up mixed use building with cellar and sub-cellar, consisting of a 48 rooms hotel, community facility spaces and general commercial/retail use, the total floor area of the building is 86,000 s.f.

The hotel portion occupies the the upper 7th to 10th floors and the community facility spaces are provided on the 5th and 6th floors below. Hotel and community facility portions are architecturally separated by open terraces located on the 7th floor, designed as open lounging areas for the hotel guests, an open bar area is also provided on the building roof. The entire 2nd and 3rd floors, rear portion of the 1st floor and the cellars are used as parking garage, accessible by two vehicle elevators, entered via the rear of the building, the front building access is designed for passenger drop-off to the hotel and community facility entrance lobbies. General commercial/retail spaces are provided in the building cellar, natural light to the spaces is provided by a large scale lightwell

Programmatic character of each function is reflected in the scale changes of the building facade and the massing. Expressively large facade openings the top floors relate the building to the larger urban scale beyond and provide large window walls to the hotel rooms. The massing of the building proportionally correspond to the surrounding physical context and gives direct clear distinction to the various building programs within.

Building Facade Study

STREET facade

Study of street facade elements-renovation of the existing building facades of two adjacent properties; the building facade on the street level of one building extends to the adjacent building, proportional to the existing scales. The continuation of the same dialogue along the sidewalk gives unity to the establishment which occupies these two properties.

Study More!

preliminary STUDY

A study model for a six story mixed use commercial and residential building in a corner lot, this is a preliminary study of the building massing and facade elements.

Condo Interiors

Interior rendering of various kitchens, bathrooms and entrance lobby of condominium buildings.

Let’s Design…A Design Office

working and meeting

This is an office for a small design company in the lower east side in Manhattan, New York. The interior layout is appropriate for the narrow linear configuration of an existing street level commercial space and the programmatic requirement for a completely open cooperative office environment.

The linearity of the space is reinforced by a continuous work surface providing four work stations and a symbolic ‘roof’ above made of laminated bamboo plywood. Lighting for this work area speaks the same dialogue.

Ties back to the ‘roof’ in another spatial plane, a built-in extendable laminated bamboo plywood conference table at the front of the office architecturally defines a conference area. A floor level built-in bookshelves adjacent to this conference table allows display of office publications or general magazines for visitors and also acting as a bench for sitting. This sitting area continues to another built-in bench above an existing radiator, perfect for the winter seasons!

A black wall facing the conference table is coated with a magnetic primer, to be used as a drawing ‘pin-up’ board with the help of simple magnets, this wall area also serves as a background for the company logo, visible from the street outside.

Perpendicular to the black wall is a built-in vertical light box, entire wall surface is evenly illuminated from behind for high contrast viewing of drawings. Behind this light box is a recessed area provided for file cabinets and printers, close off as needed by movable wall panels which doubled as drawings pin boards running parallel to the workstation area. A small pantry and a washroom are located at the back of the office.

subtlety

The overall design language and the choice of material and contrast gives subtlety in tone and tranquility yet inspires collaborative and creative thinking.

Deli In NYC, Quite Authentic!

your neighborhood deli

A deli with limited seating. An existing central column has being wisely left alone, wrapped around with a translucent plexiglass skin and provided with back lighting, turning it into a central dominant light-box, divided the longitudinal space ‘almost’ symmetrically, roughly into hot food and cold food sections. This light box is visible from the street beyond and serves to superimpose the exterior scale into the interior.

Bank Interior Test fit

test fit

Interior test fit and preliminary FF & E with factored growth projections, a part of a feasibility study verifying programmatic requirements, spatial adjacencies, operational logistics and circulation needs.

S O L A R H O U S E

Experimental design of a single family house, the exterior envelope acting as the structural support components for the building as well as being configured in respond to orientation differences. The required solar and energy requirements, exterior views and domestic programmatic needs are accommodated in the design.

Passive energy design

Building forms and massing, exterior surface cladding materials, sun shades, light wells, facade openings, interior mass floor structure and exterior vegetation etc. acknowledge the macroclimatic conditions, to attune to and possibly improve the local microclimates, thereby minimize the building’s environmental impact by greatly reducing the energy consumption.

Governors Island Memorial

MEDITATION AND CONTEMPLATION

Experimental design of a memorial building on Governors Island. It is designed as a continuous journey with a strong directional axis which suggests movement. The building becomes a sequential walk-thru transiting from interior to exterior, above and below ground, linking a series of spaces for meditation and contemplation. The progression of movement and time hinted by changes in spatial qualities and scales, corresponding to different stages in meditation. The journey ends at a small freestanding chapel, surrounding by water, connected to the main building by a pedestrian bridge.

conceptual collage

Conceptual collage of an urban setting appropriate as a park and as open air street performance spaces. It is an interplay of series of walls and screens; reminiscence of traditional performance stage backdrops.

urban theater

Architecturally there is no clear distinction between viewers and performers, foregrounds and backgrounds are interchangable, spatial volumes are contained within the multiplicity of screens which open to the surrounding streets, spaces are unified within a symbolic noncommital perimeter.

URBAN CONTEXT STUDY

Composition acts as a reference to a continuous changing urban context; a way to ‘see’ the context in the continuous timeline, establishing a point of reference in time.