New York City
1991

This minor renovation job had two planning goals: create an additional bedroom out of a former breakfast area, and open up the dining and living areas to more space and light. The first was straight forwardly accomplished by extending and wrapping a hall around the existing kitchen while reconfiguring bedroom and storage areas. The second included a bit more gymnastics:

Storage and a former kitchenette were removed and gas lines rerouted (under a platform and through ceiling beams) to enlarge the living area. A series of arched openings which regularize structural and mechanical columns were created to open the dining hall to the living room and light beyond. Elevated platforms with cherrywood build-ins were dropped in between the two areas.

The platforms are both part of the living room (in a kind of royal relationship to the more formal sitting area) and seperate lounge refuges housing the usual living room appointments (books, display, TV and stereo, wine storage, filing, etc.) The darkened cherry and upholstered fabric of the pilot and co-pilot areas, while indisputably contemporary, offer a sympathetic counterpoint to the 19th century furnishings arrayed in this otherwise undistinguishable post war apartment.