The New York Center for Living is a substance abuse facility for adolescents located in Manhattan. The 6000 sf Center, spread over three levels, is interwoven with core spaces serving the residential tower above, presenting a challenge to inserting the complex and dense program. The basement slab was lowered to create a higher ceiling, allowing for the lower level to be designed as a community space. On the street level a central therapy room sheathed in back painted illuminated glass acts as the organizing element around which private counseling rooms and offices are situated. The upper level holds executive offices, an Art Room and an outdoor terrace designed as a landscaped box with walls of "green screen". From it's street frontage to the third level, the space and facade have been transformed into a supportive and dynamic facility for both adolescents and their families by using the idea of luminosity as the guiding design force.