Garden Place is a short street in Brooklyn Heights with splendid 19th century residential architecture. This house dates from the 1840s, with Greek Revival detailing on the façade. In the 1980s the house was divided into two apartments. Our clients’ apartment, occupying three floors in the top of the building, had been modified to include a skylit double height space taking over part of the old attic. The 1980s renovations had grown tired, and the space had been subdivided in ways that compromised the intrinsic elegance of the building. Our renovation was conceptually a ‘deep cleaning,’ like polishing a neglected artifact. Though not apparent in the finished product, substantial structural modifications were required to create a more gracious flow of spaces. To highlight the unexpected nature of the double-height space, we clad the remaining sections of the old attic in walnut planks, which continue onto the ceiling of the living room below—and surprisingly—into the interior of the low-ceilinged, Hobbit-like attic room. Materials were selected to be both earthy and modern. A terrace extends the interior language of the apartment into the outdoors and gives this upper floor apartment a green space.
Statement Of Design Excellence
By carefully preserving and altering the existing structure, the environmental and resource impact of construction was minimized, in comparison to new construction. Improvements to the exterior contribute to the integrity of the context while also upgrading the quality of the interior space. Within the constraints of its location in a Landmarks district, the apartment was designed to maximize its openness to the outdoors, through maximizing daylight and maximizing screened operable glazing. The open layout and double-height space capture cross breezes and reinforce the quality of bringing the outdoors to an interior urban space. These strategies maximize the well being of the occupants. Energy conservation strategies were employed in the historic building envelope, and outdated and inefficient heating and cooling equipment was replaced.
