Text description provided by the architects. Located at 8 South 4th Street, One Domino Square is Selldorf Architects’ first residential skyscraper in the world and features connected 55-story and 39-story towers covered in shimmering porcelain tiles, giving it an alluring complexity. The façade acts as a mirror capturing and reflecting the site’s remarkable light, the ever-changing water of the East River, and the dynamic natural surroundings of Domino Park. The project’s eye-catching design and two towers place it in dialogue with the skylines of Brooklyn and Manhattan and the rest of the Domino Sugar Factory site. The Condominium tower also boasts sweeping and unmatched views of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and the Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg bridges.
Each of the 160 condominiums for sale at One Domino Square boasts stunning vistas through bespoke tilt-and-turn windows that maximize the unique views, creating airy interiors with ceiling heights of ten feet and up. The residences also feature light oak flooring, custom sconces and mirrors designed by Annabelle Selldorf, chef’s kitchens with Gagganeu appliances, customized closets, and ensuite bathrooms with a double vanity, standing shower, and standalone 60” soaking tub.
Residents at One Domino Square also have access to an incredible selection of health and wellness, entertainment, co-working and lounge spaces designed by Annabelle Selldorf. The outdoor amenities include a landscaped loggia, heated outdoor pool and sundeck overlooking Domino Park and the Manhattan skyline, as well as a rooftop garden with eight semi-private entertaining areas with furnishings and equipment for grilling, offering views of the Williamsburg Bridge and Midtown Manhattan.
The expansive collection of indoor amenities includes a lush aquatics center, featuring a heated indoor swimming pool, cold plunge, steam room, sauna, hydrotherapy spa, poolside private showers with dedicated locker rooms, and treatment rooms for massages. Other wellness-focused amenities include a state-of-the-art health club and fitness center with a group fitness movement studio and a yoga studio.
The building also offers multiple resident lounges with fireplaces, a screening room with a wet bar, a coffee bar, a library lounge, an open-air solarium, and a social lounge with billiards, table tennis, and foosball. The building features a river view co-working space with dedicated WiFi, library seating, group work and collaboration rooms, as well as private conference booths for phone calls or virtual meetings.
One Domino Square anchors the Domino Sugar Factory campus, an entirely new 11-acre waterfront site that has been transformed by Two Trees into NYC’s newest mixed-use neighborhood with multiple public parks, popular shops and restaurants, retail and workspaces, offering residents everything they need for work, play, dining, and more — all at their front door. One Domino Square features seamless access to the newly opened Domino Park and convenient access to the neighborhood’s many cultural and culinary attractions that make Williamsburg one of the most sought-after neighborhoods to live in New York City.
Before Ennead’s glass extension and steps-cum-seating were added to Brooklyn Museum’s neoclassical facade, a central staircase ushered patrons into the McKim, Mead & White–designed edifice. The renovation effectively turned the front of the museum into a plaza ripe for public recreation.
More recently, a project by Office of Tangible Space inserted a new cafe into the museum’s glass pavilion, further activating its main entrance. For Brooklyn Museum’s new cafe, Office of Tangible Space was guided by seven principles: it had to be welcoming to all, as well as playful, simple, memorable, and other qualities.
“The space embodies the playfulness, creativity, craft, and expression that make Brooklyn and Brooklynites so unique,” the firm shared in a project description.
The cafe is located within the Brooklyn Museum’s glass pavilion, designed by Ennead as part of a 2005 renovation project. (Matthew Gordon)
The angled windows and exposed roof structure of Ennead’s glass pavilion from 2005 flood natural light into the interiors, which remain airy. Now, this space has been simply furnished.
Bespoke Solutions
The dining venue’s layout was meant to evoke “islands and streams,” designers said. Toward that end, an array of seating options were strewn throughout the space, and an arrangement of tables were positioned into undulating shapes that recall streams. On the floor organic-shaped “islands” form a ground of sorts for sets of circular tables.
Lining the perimeter of the cafe are rounded ottomans from Knoll. Office of Tangible Space designed a number of the furniture pieces for the cafe, including metal tables and wood elements.
Groupings of slightly curved blue tables recall streams. (Matthew Gordon)Markings on the floor loosely refer to the designer’s “island” concept. (Matthew Gordon)
An art- and community-centered contribution to the cafe are ten stools decorated by artists with connections to Brooklyn. The pieces were commissioned by the Brooklyn Museum and Office of Tangible Space.
Each stool features a unique design, some are simply painted, while others don fabrics, textured additions, carved elements, and mosaic tiles. The contributing artists include Cody Hoyt, Vincent Jackson, Minjae Kim, Emma Kohlmann, Gracelee Lawrence, Kim Mupangilaï, Sarah Nsikak, Ellen Pong, Allan Wexler, Chen Chen, and Kai Williams.
Ten artists were commissioned to decorate wooden stools for the cafe. (Matthew Gordon)
“These handcrafted pieces not only complement the cafe’s design but also echo the philosophy that food, like art, is an immersive experience—engaging the senses, sparking conversation, and creating a connection between the creator and the audience,” the firm shared.
The food display counter is faced with textured upholstery. (Matthew Gordon)
Culture and Community
To design the cafe’s kitchen and food display case, Office of Tangible Space opted for an industrial look that meshes well with the existing architecture. The counter was wrapped in a textured upholstery and topped with glass screens that separate hungry museum patrons from the containers of a simple fare of pastries, baked goods, sandwiches, soups, salads from restaurateur André Hueston Mack and Brooklyn-based Parlor Coffee.
Office of Tangible Space describes its ethos as being “rooted in maintaining a connection to culture and community.” With the Brooklyn Museum cafe, that firm has done exactly that by centering the work of local artists and delivering a dining space that offers comfort and enjoyment for all.
The cafe coincides with the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th-anniversary and the unveiling of a new graphic identity. (Matthew Gordon)
In the year 2000, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awarded its prestigious Stirling Prize to Peckham Library, by architects Alsop and Stormer. Although it wasn’t the first time for a library to win the prize, it was the first time a local library won it. It was an illustration of the times when public finances could conjure briefs with the intention to “create a building of architectural merit that will bring prestige to the borough.” The library was commended for the public open space it created, its fun and colorful design, and its environmental credentials. It sits proudly in the heart of the community and it is interesting that its sign, projecting above the roof line, simply spells ‘Library’, an indication of the importance of this building’s function to the area.
Fast forward twenty or so years and the change in landscape is palpable. According to the BBC, one in twenty local libraries in the United Kingdom have closed and a third of those remaining have reduced opening hours. By 2019, almost 800 libraries had closed across the country. It is noted that local libraries are not used by members of the community for only borrowing books, but also for literacy clubs, access to computers, and even as warm spaces during cold winters. With such a deep crisis affecting these vital community facilities, how are designers responding to new needs and constraints? This applies to the UK and internationally, where similar problems are present. How is the gap between community aspirations for libraries and the means available being bridged by design?
Staying within the UK, a project that bucks this trend is the recently completed Plumstead Centre by architects Hawkins\Brown. Located in one of the outer boroughs of Greater London, the old Plumstead Library occupied a historic building purposely built in 1903. It became increasingly underused over the years and had fallen on hard times. A rear section of the building was only used as storage for the mobile library, while the reference library section was replaced with a museum of local history that wasn’t as successful as hoped. When the local council decided to renovate and extend the building and develop new activities for it, rather than imposing preconceived ideas, it engaged an architect at the very beginning of the briefing stage. According to Jason Martin, partner at Hawkins\Brown, this meant engaging deeply with the current users and the local community.
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Despite the library being underused, it became apparent that local residents had a strong desire to keep it. The trick was to incorporate additional uses that would increase the footfall in the library, and the hope was for the different uses to work symbiotically. A local badminton group practiced in a makeshift court nearby, so this function was incorporated in the form of a small sports hall in the new design. An operator of local fitness facilities proposed the inclusion of a gym. A vaulted ceiling was discovered in the existing historic building and this became a large, daylit play room. There were meeting rooms that could be used for music practice as well as a dance studio with a sprung floor.
In addition to this, a new, bright entrance was created with level access and lifts to improve accessibility. A café created a casual space and meeting point for the various users. With all these different functions, what turned out to be one of the biggest successes was a large unprogrammed space in the middle of the building formed of tiers like an auditorium and connecting the ground floor with the first. This was also used as a meeting spot, a reading area, or a space for doing homework. After the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown was lifted, the first in-person council meeting was held in this space.
All in all, the Plumstead Centre succeeded in creating a thriving community space. The multitude of additional functions did not detract from the purpose of the library but rather revitalized it. This integration of functions within a library building can be seen in a multitude of examples and can be the key to long-term success. Nestled in a wooded area in Latvia, the Ogre Central Library and Marriage Registry is a combination of functions not normally associated with each other. It contains several spaces related to the library, such as a children’s library, a reading room, and meeting rooms, as well as a conference hall and a summertime café. The center also contains a civil registry office complete with a ceremony hall.
Like in Plumstead, PBR Architects Bureau engaged extensively with the local community to develop the brief for the library. Spaces like a baby playing area with an adjacent care and feeding room and a rock-climbing wall in the children’s games room were added. The marriage registry and ascetic ceremony hall are located on the second floor, with ample glazing facing the canopy of trees. The structure of the whole building is composed of glue-laminated and cross-laminated timber with multiple hipped pitched roofs that delineate the different functions of the library.
Heading south, the Masoro Learning & Sports Centre in Rwanda is another example. It sits in a rural location near the village of Masoro, combining a library, classrooms, technology education rooms, indoor and outdoor exercise spaces, community teaching gardens, outdoor theaters, a basketball court, and a community soccer field. According to the architects, General Architecture Collaborative, changes in the topography were used to differentiate between the various functions and create seating.
Examples from around the world showcase a consistent interest in the varied roles of libraries as highly valued social and cultural assets in local communities, from the simple ‘library’ sign on Peckham Library to the residents of Plumstead wishing to save their underused library, or the community of Masoro gathering for a local sporting event. Introducing new functions to existing or newly built libraries is becoming a method of guaranteeing their survival. In Brooklyn, New York, home to many historic libraries built in the early to mid-twentieth century, this was recognized by Situ Studio. The architects studied the Borough’s 59 public libraries and identified the various ancillary functions desired locally, most of which were not catered for by the historic architecture.
These functions, ranging from fitness classes to exhibitions and play spaces, have very different requirements. These include flooring types, acoustic isolation, daylight versus dark rooms, use of projectors, privacy versus openness, etc. To tackle multiple sites at once, Situ Studio devised a ‘kit of parts’ that could be installed in different combinations to provide the required environmental conditions for each activity, hence the project’s name ‘Making Spaces‘. The scheme is an architectural response to the diversification of uses that had already begun to take place in many of the borough’s libraries and is a further testament to this being a method of survival and revitalization of local libraries.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Designing for the Common Good. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
“The houses usually find us,” says Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse cofounder and cochair Ellen Hamilton, on how the organization locates an appropriately worthy venue for the biennial neighborhood fundraiser. This year, the honor falls to a stately late-Greek Revival town house on Clinton Street, which, unlike many previous show homes, is actually not for sale. “The homeowner happened to be sitting next to a client of mine, and she said ‘I’m moving, and I don’t know what to do with my old home—I don’t want to sell it, and I don’t want to rent it.’ My client said, ‘Call Ellen! She’ll completely transform it for you.’”
It was, of course, too tempting of an offer to refuse, much to the organization’s delight. But securing a suitable home for the show house was only half the battle: Hamilton, fellow cofounder Erica Belsey Worth, and Leyden Lewis, this year’s Honorary Design Chair and the founder of AD100 firm Leyden Lewis Design Studio, then needed to find the right designers to transform each of its rooms. They cast a wide night to find the talented roster, reviewing around 400 names culled from industry editors and design-forward friends in the neighborhood. The whittling-down can be grueling, and what can secure a designer a winning berth is sometimes ineffable: “We’re always looking for what we call that ‘Brooklyn vibe,’” Hamilton says.
The Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse 2024 is now open through November 3. Tickets for touring are available here. Exterior landscaping by Project Plant.
Photo: Tori Sikkema Photography
The lucky 16 who were selected only had a moment to celebrate, however. They were granted access to the home on August 8 and had to be finished with renovations no later than September 19, leaving a little over a week to make finishing touches before the Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse opened to the public. “We all work hard and fast!” Hamilton says. But none of the final spaces feel rushed, or slapdash. In fact, there’s a surprising cohesion to the rooms, despite each designers’ separate vision.
This, perhaps, speaks not only to that intangible “Brooklyn vibe,” but the designers’ own ears to the ground of what trends are emerging for 2025. If the show house is any indication, dark, moody hues coating walls and ceilings will continue their reign. This choice is apparent as soon as you walk in, in JMorris Design’s foyer, which the AD PRO Directory talent accented with rich, blue-tinged Amazon Green by Benjamin Moore and walls paneled in a tree-lined mural from Eskayel. Downstairs, the mudroom by Shapeless Studio deepens the shade with inky-blue walls and ceiling and another custom mural—this one featuring a playful cloud scene by Esme Shapiro. But no area embodies this color trend more than the subterranean media room, designed by Batliboi Studio. Meant to evoke the feeling of an old-time movie theater, the space is enveloped in oxblood and warmed with regal doses of amber, crimson, and mauve via copious pillows covered in Indian textiles and a Bang & Olufson wall speaker covered in Kvadrat fabric.
Design wise, we also clocked a permeating influence of the Vienna Secession movement, which inspired AD PRO Directory firm JAM’s tomato-hued “midnight study” space, as well as Landed Interiors’ primary bedroom, which features a showpiece pendant light from the period. (The piece is so good that creative principal Lynn Kloythanomsup says it will be going straight to her personal collection post-show house.) Many designers chose to emphasize the home’s rich interior architecture. In their top-floor “Creative Study,” emerging firm Casa Angulo extended the crown detailing and coated it and the ceiling in a chocolate-hued high gloss, lending a richer level of sophistication to the jewel-box space.
Toshiko Mori Architects’s first refresh to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library brought books to the front entrance of the library for the first time in decades. Now to continue the project that responds to the library’s mission “to provide free access to all the world’s wisdom,” the architecture firm has returned for phase two; the project unveiled last week will offer expanded spaces for children, teens, and adult learners.
The project will increase the library’s available public space while preserving its extensive collection for recreational use and academic research. This renovation marks the most significant wave of library redevelopment since the Carnegie era, with government and private partners working together. A $150 million capital plan is making the ambitious project possible.
Long desks and reading shelves surround the soon-to-be renovated collections room. (Courtesy Brooklyn Public Library)
Toshiko Mori, the lead architect, commented on phase one of the project: “The words carved at the entrance to the library read ‘The Brooklyn Public Library, through the joining of municipal enterprise and private generosity, offers to all people perpetual and free access to the knowledge and thought of all the ages.”
The first phase of the renovation restored areas previously used for administrative purposes to public use. For the New and Noteworthy Book Gallery, a custom-designed metal ceiling sculpture was installed. The Civic Commons and the Major Owens Welcome Center were enhanced with refurbished oak paneling and terrazzo flooring. These same materials were applied on the second floor, in addition to more mechanical upgrades throughout.
The wood introduced in phase one of the renovation will be continued. (Courtesy Brooklyn Public Library)
Phase two introduces several key updates to the BPL’s Central Library. The Adult Learning Center will be updated with specialized collections, a cutting-edge computer lab, a seminar room for classes and meetings, and adaptable spaces for lifelong learners. Renderings of the space depict a bright, airy environment with classrooms and moveable tables and chairs. Large windows will afford patrons views of the street. A large screen for presentations and informational displays adds to the flexibility of the learning center. The use of wooden accents draws similarities to the shelves and furnishings used in the spaces renovated during the first phase. The restored collection areas will preserve the library’s historical architecture while improving functionality and providing spaces to read, work, and learn. These areas will feature long wooden tables with ample seating.
The new children’s area is slated to become a prominent location with BPL’s Central Library. Visuals show the nook subtly decked out in natural elements such as wood and soft green tones. It’s clear the design intends to foster a welcoming and engaging environment for young children. A semi-circular dome in the ceiling adds a sense of enclosure and intimacy to the open space along with the wooden archways conceived with soft, round curves. Shelving will be built into the wooden archways and natural light pours in through large windows.
The renovated teen center will have tech hub and facilities for music and podcasts. (Courtesy Brooklyn Public Library)
The newly established teen center will feature an open layout accented by a series of arches that create division among the shelves and workspaces. The archways integral to the design of the children’s area will appear again in this space, albeit with a more rigid and elongated form. Seating options—among these chairs and benches— for kicking back with a book and hanging out with friends are in abundance. The ceiling will feature multi-layered wooden beams. Beyond physical literature, the space doubles as a tech center with music and podcast recording pods and a dedicated gaming hub.
Looking ahead, the renovation project reaches beyond the current upgrades, with long-term plans in sight. Future phases aim to transform lower-level storage spaces into public areas. Additionally, it will link the Central Library to Mount Prospect Park with the creation of an elevated outdoor reading garden.
The BPL organized interactive community engagement sessions, focus groups, and surveys both in-person at the library and online, gathering valuable feedback from the public. Moving forward, the library will continue involving the community and will host additional engagement sessions to help shape the next phases of the renovation.
Phase two will be carried out in stages so as to keep the library in operation. It is expected to be completed by 2027.
Is it a dorm? Kollegium? Commune? Whatever you call it, coliving is an affordable living option and an emerging urban residential type. Cohabs, a Brussels-based start-up is at the forefront of the typology, which is popping up in city centers across the globe. One of the newest Cohabs residences just touched down in Greenpoint, Brooklyn: McCarren 141, a design collaboration between start-up founders Malik and Youri Dauber and their friend François Samyn and interior designer Lionel Jadot.
When approaching the corner lot, the exterior is unassuming. A work of adaptive reuse, it blends with the surrounding residential brick buildings. AN toured McCarren 141 shortly after the Summer 2024 Olympics and one of the residents drew Brazil’s flag with chalk on the sidewalk by the front door, clearly showing who they were rooting for. When entering the residence, a wall of wooden cubbies hangs in front of a chalkboard. Here, residents receive their mail—their names are handwritten on the chalkboard, adding a personal touch. In this lobby the ceiling is capped with exposed bulb fixtures that pierce through actual checker and backgammon boards—hinting at the design theme for McCarren 141.
Throughout the residential project second-hand furniture was coupled with original elements. (Pierre Jampy)
The board game theme was cleverly weaved throughout the residence. Bold colors and second-hand furniture were deployed among original elements of the reused structure. Jadot’s design feels clunky: all the necessary items are there, but it’s intentionally chaotic. It is evident the organized minimalism was not at the forefront of the interior design intent, but rather the space can be described as “casual” and “sociable.” After all, U.S. managing director Dan Clark and soon-to-be operations manager in Washington, D.C. Lucy d’Alençon, liken the Cohabs experience to “living with 15 friends.”
What Is Cohabs?
McCarren 141 is one 13 Brooklyn sites Cohabs operates. The start-up’s vision currently spans 11 cities and a total of 125 buildings with many more in the pipeline. The founders set an ambitious goal to land in 12 cities with 5,000 rooms by its ten-year anniversary in 2026. Clearly, they’re well on their way.
So, why Greenpoint? Cohabs subscribed to the “15-minute city” mantra but extends it slightly in the New York context to a more realistic 30 minutes. This is achieved by acquiring sites close to public transportation, grocery stores, and restaurants, in addition to a set commute timeline to central Manhattan.
The shared amenities, including lounge spaces, are a more sustainable model for living and building. (Pierre Jampy)
Every Cohabs building has an average of 20 to 25 rooms subdivided into what are called “units.” Each unit shares resources like bathrooms and kitchenettes, but beyond the necessities, amenities from on-site laundry, a gym, rooftop terraces, and gardens are included in the rent. This is the more radical heart of coliving. Not only are shared amenities a more sustainable model for living and building, they have also been shown to increase sociability in urban residences and push back against a crisis of loneliness.
Furnishing Community
Community is a key tenet of the Cohabs philosophy, so the first floor is typically communal. A fully stocked kitchen is equipped with cooking appliances and utensils. It is accompanied by a grand dining table and small seating area. The bold color scheme comes through here with the ceiling and stove vents completely doused in a burnt red-orange color, contrasting the green-stained wooden cabinetry. The basement has been converted into a large living room with sunken sofas and quirky side chairs where people can socialize. Despite being a basement with pockets of exposed stone walls, it’s easy to forget there aren’t any windows. Instead, a wide array of textures and patterns clash together. From purposefully mismatched furniture to more board game paraphernalia, this space continues the casual vibe Cohabs has curated.
Elements from board game design and play were incorporated throughout. (Pierre Jampy)
Behind each Cohabs residence is a design team with a particular vision of home. The chief design officer and partner at Cohabs is interior designer Lionel Jadot. He likes to give a new spin to discarded items and is no stranger to adaptive reuse—the design approach for Cohabs sites. “Jadot likes to keep the old whenever possible and bring in a new, fresh kind of juxtapositions,” said Clark. “He has a wabi-sabi kind of philosophy—a lot of Japanese meets Scandinavian within the design.” At the McCarren residence in particular, Jadot kept as much of the original structure as possible. This includes the original wooden floors, even though it meant patching up the holes with plywood. In this iteration of the building, a wall with tin tilework was intentionally left half-painted. The colors range from dark teal to spots of soft peach, ochre, and a quiet eggshell white. This layered reveal continues upstairs, where the stairwells and hallways showcase the remains of historic wallpapers.
Among the furnishings not sourced second-hand were the CNC-manufactured beds, desks, and wardrobes that furnish the bedrooms. (Pierre Jampy)
Making a Sustainable Statement
To determine which sustainable methods are best for Cohabs, the team developed “lab houses” where they experiment on the latest green design trends. The first of the guinea-pig structures was the Ma Campagne 232 in Brussels. “These are houses that are more time consuming and a bit more expensive for us to renovate but are where we’re going to explore a lot of new materials and see how they’re going to last,” d’Alençon shared. Lab houses have tested insulation, paint, waterproof stucco, and water restricting shower heads—just to name a few. The next lab house will be in Paris, and there are hopes for a future one in New York City.
A gym is among the amenities offered to the residents. The designers took a light-touch approach to its design, leaving many of the brick walls and columns exposed and half-painted. (Pierre Jampy)
Sustainable design also extends from the exterior architecture to interior design. Cohabs is a big believer in reusing furniture whenever possible. Most North American locations use Kaiyo, an online second-hand furniture start-up that allows you to buy and sell used pieces in an app. Jadot also sources furnishings from local antique shops. For the Greenpoint outpost, many side tables and mirrors came from Williamsburg’s Mother of Junk and the communal dining table was a find from Olde Good Things. The only furniture not reused are the custom CNC beds, desks, and wardrobes from Nashville CNC. They were assembled on site like Legos.
The terrace is another communal hangout space for residents. (Pierre Jampy)
It’s obvious the Cohabs team prides itself on making each residence feel like home. Some team members have even found themselves living in Cohabs—and truly relate it as “home.” This is a progressive start-up that hopes to cause a domino effect in both the design and urban field by opening people’s eyes to sustainable and coliving housing initiatives.
With backgrounds in fashion and design, mother-daughter interior design duo Diana Rice and Chelsea Reale of Sissy+Marley Interiors have an impeccable eye for detail and an appreciation for sophisticated and well-balanced neutral palettes. Their love of texture, mixed metals, beautiful textiles, and pattern, blended with their edgy design aesthetic, makes their spaces luxurious and livable.
While each project emerges with their distinct signature, every one of them is unique to the families that live there. The goal for every undertaking is to create a space that their clients love coming home to—one that is chic, but also very relaxed and inviting. Rice and Reale’s team provides residential interior design and architectural services in New York City, the Hamptons, and beyond.
Space Exploration Design totally gutted this 1,200-square-foot Prospect Park prewar residence to eliminate its restrictive layout and adjust the proportions of various rooms.
Nicole Franzen
Space Exploration Design seeks to create spaces that resonate with subtle harmony. The firm’s projects, which span interior architecture and design, are driven by a love of simplicity, nuance, craftsmanship and the integrity of beautiful materials expressed through construction. The studio has great reverence for history, but also prizes innovation and fresh ideas.
Founding principal Kevin Greenberg holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to founding Space Exploration in 2008, he worked for firms in New York, Seattle, and Japan, and is also an active writer and teacher.
In the living room of an Upper West Side brownstone, Studio Tove chose a few large-scale furniture pieces and incorporated some of the client’s preexisting furniture, while being mindful of the energy flow and circulation within the space.
Seth Caplan
Studio Tove, previously Vergara Interiors, was founded by Silvana Vergara—an architect and interior designer with over 12 years of experience delivering high-end space and product designs for a wide range of clients, including residential, commercial, and hospitality projects. Vergara believes interiors act as extensions of ourselves, conveying moods and emotions.
At Studio Tove, the team strives to co-create timeless spaces with their clients. These rooms can be a reflection of their inhabitants, and exist in synchrony with their energy and aesthetic pursuits. Vergara’s interest in sustainability and eco-conscious projects has resulted in an exploration into material health research and a refocus of her interior design practice on wellness. She holds a certificate by the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons as a designer qualified to create healthier interiors.
Are you looking for an interior decorator or designer to hire for your next project? Wherever you are, visit theAD PRO Directoryto browse our list of AD-approved designers and find your match for a design consultation.
There are designer-client relationships that unfold like storybook romances, with late-night texts, long lunches, shopping sprees, and impromptu trips to Paris. This was no such project—much to everyone’s relief. When McKayla Kingston and Arpan Podduturi, two busy tech executives, purchased an apartment in a historic Brooklyn building, they arrived with clear ideas and a sense of urgency. “We didn’t want to wait a decade for some place to feel lived-in and loved,” recalls Kingston, who came prepared with a meticulous dossier of reference images and notes. “It needed to feel like home as quickly as possible.”
Enter consummate professional Heidi Caillier, a Seattle-based talent whose moody twists on tradition caught the couple’s attention on Instagram and whose streamlined approach, they happily discovered, aligned with their own. “Our process is super condensed,” reflects Caillier, who in just 10 years has grown her practice from a one-woman show to a team of seven, with upwards of 20 projects on the boards. “We design everything top-to-bottom in one fell swoop.” Brainstorming is limited to one epic onboarding session, during which she and her clients go room by room in exacting detail. “Brass or nickel? Upholstered or non-upholstered dining chairs? Monoprint or pattern mixing?” muses Caillier, rattling off just a few or her many routine questions. Mind meld accomplished, she then devotes herself to developing the complete plans. “By our next meeting, everything is in place.”
And so it was just weeks after the couple contacted her that Caillier presented them over a video call with what would then become the final scheme for their home. “It was a resounding ‘yes’ to everything,” Kingston says of the designer’s nuanced array of furnishings and fabrics. “Trends accelerate, peak, and fade so quickly. We wanted a mix that would age such that you couldn’t date it to a specific year, even though it was all done at once.”
Good bones laid the foundation. “There was already enough detail that the rooms felt special,” Caillier recalls of the interior architecture, conceived by the AD100 firm Workstead as part of the building’s recent conversion. “All we had to do was layer on top of it.” True to that strategy, an airy foyer gives way to a visually impactful dining room, where a floral Fromental wallpaper serves as a bold backdrop to a 1950s Stilnovo chandelier, contemporary table, and vintage Henning Kjaernulf chairs. In the adjacent living room, by contrast, white walls offset an eclectic array of furniture—some new, some vintage—and a salon-style art arrangement. “You need places to breathe,” says Caillier, noting that the view from the living room extends past the entry to the powder room, where decorative painter James Mobley created an immersive mural of dots and stripes.
That kaleidoscopic rhythm continues throughout the 2,500-square-foot apartment, whose circuitous floor plan centers on the kitchen. Whereas the guest suite is cocooned—walls, curtains, bed, seating—in a densely patterned Rosa Bernal textile, the primary suite is a melange of muddy tones, handsome plaids, and tactile details. The office reveals rich coats of Farrow & Ball’s Bancha green—a verdant counterpoint to the chocolate scheme of daughter Vivian’s nursery. “I will marinade on a room until it’s perfect,” Caillier reflects. “But once it’s done, it’s done.”
As a final, personal leitmotif, the couple has sprinkled in an array of Etsy finds, including artworks and lighting. “We both work at companies that empower small businesses, so it was important to incorporate that into our home,” reflects Kingston, who—ever organized—maintains her own secret shortlist of online vendors. In a sign of the times, she and Podduturi have yet to meet Caillier in person—not that they feel any less of a connection to her work. “Heidi has so much confidence and conviction and heart. It made every decision super easy.”
Members of Simply Better Homes Tenants Association, a tenants union, appeared in Brooklyn Housing Court this month against Simply Better Apartment Homes (SBAH), a New York–based real estate group that’s managed by at least six Related Companies employees.
On June 17, the tenants association alleged the Related Companies subsidiary is wrongfully evicting residents from their New York properties, illegally flipping rent-stabilized apartments into market-rate flats, and retaliating against tenants who organized a legal rent strike last September. Brooklyn Eviction Defense is aiding Simply Better Homes Tenant Association in their case.
Related built Hudson Yards and is currently behind the controversial NYCHA Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses demolition plan. On SBAH’s website, no explicit relationship with Related is mentioned. But both Related and SBAH share several employees and both have offices at 60 Columbus Circle, the former Time Warner Center, a Related property where its CEO Stephen Ross personally lived until 2023.
Brooklyn Eviction Defense is a tenants rights group that aids residents facing foreclosure and eviction. (Michael Premo/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)
Employees of Simply Better Apartment Homes include Dennis Ovale, Matthew Becker, Rosa Rodriguez-Gil, Vanessa Ortiz, Patricia Rodriguez-Figueroa, Marc Flynn, and Natasha Davis. Six of the seven staffers, according to their LinkedIns, are simultaneously employees of Related Companies.
Today, both Ovale and Becker are senior vice presidents at Related Companies; Rodriguez-Gil is vice president of operations at Related; and Flynn, Ortiz, and Davis are Related district managers. (Before working for Related, Davis worked for NYCHA as a property manager for over 23 years.) Rodriguez-Figueroa is an employee of Fairstead, a New York property management company.
Residents of buildings owned by Simply Better Apartment Homes claim that they’re being harassed and that wrongful eviction charges have been brought against them in Bronx County Civil Court and Kings County Civil Court. The law firm that Simply Better Apartment Homes uses to file these eviction claims is called Gutman, Mintz, Baker, and Sonnerfeldt, a law office based in New Hyde Park, New York.
A 2018 exposé by The New York Times found that Gutman, Mintz, Baker, and Sonnerfeldt brought over 110,000 eviction cases in just five years against tenants, many of which were living in rent-stabilized apartments. This prompted reporters to call the law firm an “eviction machine” that targets poor people who can’t afford legal representation and helps real estate companies convert rent-stabilized apartments into market-rate flats. While most of those evicted by Gutman, Mintz, Baker, and Sonnerfeldt were able to move into apartments with friends and family, some became homeless.
After the tenants union appeared in court on June 17, SBAH officials offered to withdraw the eviction cases against the rent strikers, but the tenant association countered by demanding that the case proceed. This will allow tenants to provide evidence to Brooklyn Housing Court that SBAH is illegally rent-destabilizing apartments in their portfolio, among other activities. AN has reached out to Related Companies and Simply Better Apartment Homes for comment.
181 Havemeyer Street is one of Simply Better Apartment Homes’s properties. (Google Earth)
Today, Simply Better Apartment Homes owns multiple properties throughout New York and manages them through a mix of Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) registered in Wilmington, Delaware; and Albany, New York. Some of these LLCs are named NYSANDY14 WILLIAMSBURG 3 LLC and NYSANDY5 NBP27 LLC.
32 Garnet Street in Brooklyn, for instance, is a Simply Better Apartment Homes property that’s managed by NYSANDY8 BROOKLYN 4 LLC; and its landlords are Rosa Rodriguez-Gil and Natasha Davis. Other buildings in Simply Better Apartment Homes’s portfolio include 442 Lorimer Street, 181 Havemeyer Street, and 54 Maujer Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and 254 Anthony Avenue, 3155 Grand Concourse, 2100 Bronx Park East, and 2140 Cruger Avenue in the Bronx; among others. Related’s Matthew Becker, Rosa Rodriguez-Gil, Natasha Davis, and Vanessa Ortiz are landlords of many of these buildings.
According to an open data site called JustFix, Simply Better Apartment Homes’s portfolio has had an estimated net gain of 425 rent stabilized units since 2007. This means it successfully converted 609 rent-stabilized homes throughout New York into market-rate flats, a number that marks 13.3 percent of Simply Better Apartment Homes’s total portfolio. At one Bronx building alone, 275 East 201st Street, a total of 59 units have been rent-destabilized in the past ten years.
2100 Bronx Park East (Google Earth)
Members of Simply Better Homes Tenant Association argue that real estate firms like Related Companies are abetted by New York politicians. Good Cause was approved by lawmakers in Albany this year, albeit with significant changes to the original version.
But still, rent-stabilized apartments in New York are under threat thanks to loopholes that allow landlords to demolish and replace them with new market-rate units.
Today, organizers from Brooklyn Eviction Defense and Crown Heights Eviction Defense are challenging these loopholes in protests and at the policy level.
Courtesy of Studio Gang | Marlboro Agricultural Education Center in Gravesend, Brooklyn
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Studio Gang has just released the design for the new Marlboro Agricultural Education Center in Brooklyn, New York. Reimagining a more equitable and inclusive food system, the design transforms a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) campus into a hub for multigenerational education, job training, and community leadership in urban agriculture. Operated by the nonprofit organization The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH), the Center seeks to leverage longstanding efforts across the city to enhance food autonomy and security in underserved neighborhoods.
Courtesy of Studio Gang | Marlboro Agricultural Education Center in Gravesend, Brooklyn
Situated in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood, this new building offers users diverse, community-oriented programs at the western edge of Marlboro Houses. The design aims to strengthen contextual relationships with the surrounding area through generous sidewalk pathways and large windows revealing the activities within. Additionally, it features a central, accessible entrance and public terrace with plantings and seating, inviting pedestrians to explore the building. The community spaces and flexible teaching zones are enhanced through the use of natural light on the ground floor, where users can attend cooking and nutrition programs.
The design’s upper level supports a working greenhouse dedicated to hydroponics and aquaponic gardening. The Marlboro Agricultural Education Center boasts a bright plaster facade and transparent upper levels, seeking to create a sense of warmth and openness that enlivens the campus and the surrounding street. By introducing density in the structure while simultaneously maximizing efficiency with its compact footprint, the building aims to serve as a model for sustainable development in the food justice movement. Moreover, it also incorporates passive heating and cooling strategies, solar access for growing, all-electric systems, and rainwater storage and reuse. Together, these sustainable strategies aim to establish a vibrant community space designed to support residents long-term as they work towards a better future in the industry.
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Courtesy of Studio Gang | Marlboro Agricultural Education Center in Gravesend, Brooklyn
Now more than ever, architecture plays a significant role in shaping community spaces and creating environments that foster connection, inclusivity, and growth. In other similar news, Studio Gang recently began construction of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center also in Brooklyn, aiming to bring new collective amenities to the residents of East Flatbush while honoring the community. Similarly, Snøhetta’s Beijing City Library has recently opened its doors to the public, introducing a space for learning and knowledge-sharing in the city’s cultural scene. Finally, Heatherwick Studio has revealed their first public library design in Maryland, United States, serving as a community center and reimagining the role of a library in a city.
