Columbus Ave Loft Building Enlargement

The existing 3-story rooftop addition to a 4-story loft building built in 1900 was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1990, and has been universally characterized as “inappropriate, out-of-character, convoluted, asymmetrical and erratic.” The reconfiguration we proposed seeks to regularize the addition’s geometry, reduce its height and apparent mass, while actually enlarging the addition substantially.

The existing addition’s major problem is its large mass relative to the volume of the original 4-story building. We decided that we would break up the addition’s mass into two portions: its lower floor would be made to look like a much earlier addition to the original building typical of late 19th century, by the reconfiguration of this lower floor’s street-facing façade into a sloped-glass “artist studio-type” window.

The rest of the addition is pulled back from the brick side walls and the street façade, and is broken up into two portions – the mostly obscured lower portion will be finished in stucco, and the upper portion will be finished in lead-coated copper, so that it might be perceived as being further back than it really is.

The project was approved in 2011 and will be under construction in 2013.