V33 | Archi-Tectonics

Tribeca’s landmark district, originally a warehouse area, will get a new ‘infill’. The choice not to copy a traditional building, but to focus on the quality of the Tribeca traditional buildings was greatly appreciated by the NYC Landmark Committee. Extreme ceiling heights, tri-partite façade sub-divisions, durable natural materials, and façade alignments were some of the qualities and contextual issues looked at. Since the design of the facades of the neighboring buildings varies greatly, the decision was taken to extrapolate the differentiation into a pixilated façade pattern, which negotiates the two neighboring façade rhythms. This now contextual texture of the V33 street facade is developed in a random pattern of translucent stone, stone, glass, and translucent glass. The shift in material will allow the façade to constantly change over the course of a day; the translucent stone will glow by day in the interior, while by night it is reversed, thus transforming the façade over the course of a day and night. Here the traditional building has been de-laminated and optimized; the North street façade is considered a more flat stone and glass pixilation, the South garden façade is more spatial, with large cantilevering volumes and terraces, providing shaded interiors and great outdoor areas. In the middle of the building where these two systems meet, we created spatial differentiation; folds in the floor and ceiling plates allow a separation of use without unnecessarily enclosing spaces. Towards the street spaces compress with lower ceiling heights, towards the garden the spaces open up with high ceilings and double height spaces. A fluid continuity is expressed in a random pattern of balconies, generating a light but shaded southern exposure. We considered the V33 building not as a traditional apartment building but rather a set of stacked individually designed urban villas. These villas are custom-designed with their own authentic qualities and spaces and vary greatly through the building. Because of their extremely generous size [between 3500 and 5000 sf], large outdoor spaces [terraces & gardens] and sometimes multiple floors, they create ideal living environments. The fact that interior and exterior spaces flow seamlessly over into each other expresses that idea further.