Union Square Apartment

874, Broadway, Manhattan, New York, NY, United States

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Worth Street Loft

Union Square Apartment

874, Broadway, Manhattan, New York, NY, United States

Firm

LCD Studio

Type

Residential › Apartment

YEAR

2010

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

The project
transformed a small fourth floor two-bedroom apartment in a historic building
in Union Square into a one-bedroom plus study and library for a radiologist who
often works and entertains at home.
In contrast to the dark
cellar x-ray laboratory described in Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, daylighting and artificial lighting
are marshaled to create contemporary living and diagnostic spaces for the review and
transcription of the most “intimate photographs.” Ceilings were
brought up to their original height of 12’-0” throughout. Kitchen, dining, storage, and library
areas were re-organized to preserve adjacency to
north and west exposures for the living room, bedroom, and study areas. Initially conceived of as expedient
solutions, a platform and core became spatial organizers and opportunities for
material elaboration. As counterpoint to
the reclaimed white oak used throughout, the elevated platform was surfaced
with basaltina stone tile. The interior
of the core volume was wall-papered with an abstract tree print selected by the
client, providing an artificially natural interior wrapper. In the entry spaces of vestibule, study, and
library, inexpensive chalkboard paint was used to translate the material of the
platform into the vertical at a partial height wall and a book shelf alcove. In the living area to the rear, the
interlocking volumetric language of platform and core was replicated in
relationships between the island and tall cabinets. As a specific form of the live-work environment, the project
responds to technological shifts in digital communication and medical imaging,
and borrows the infrastructural raised floor and core from the modern office
tower, while preserving the intimacy of the urban apartment as refuge from the
fray.