Aspen — New York — Como — Dubai
Internal area
Completed
Status
2022
Completed
57th
Plot
Location
Midtown, New York, USA
Type
Apartment — office-to-residential conversion
Scope
Architecture, interiors, landscape
Palette
Honed basalt · White oak · Blackened bronze · Linen plaster
Overview
The conversion of a 1970s office floor into a three-bedroom residence with 6 m ceilings. The brief asked for gallery-grade walls, a kitchen that disappears, and bedrooms that hold silence above one of the loudest avenues in the world.
The brief
Three bedrooms, gallery hall, concealed kitchen, library, two terraces. Board approvals required zero impact on risers, facade or neighbours.
Palette
Case notes
How it
was built.
Five notes from the job — the constraints that shaped the plan, and what the structure, interiors and landscape did about them.
A full NE corner with Central Park and Hudson aspects. Surveys found 400 mm of dead services above the slab; the design reuses the void for new acoustic build-ups instead of raising floors.
No new openings in the facade or core. A new steel stair insertion links the split levels; the 9-tonne stone package was craned in a single weekend slot with the building's rigging crew.
A honed-basalt spine wall carries services and art lighting; white-oak galleries run either side. Bronze vitrines display the collection. The kitchen closes behind oak panels in under a minute.
Two terraces in stone pavers with wind-rated planting and concealed drainage; furniture fixed to structural points only.
New dedicated ventilation with heat recovery, acoustic glazing secondary to the curtain wall, and full LED with daylight dimming throughout.
Living gallery — basalt spine, white oak
Timeline
Team
Architecture + interiors
SELA Studio
Expediter + code
NYC consultant
Structural engineer
NY-licensed practice
AV + acoustic
Consultant appointment
Project data
