Fort Greene House
This project presented the extraordinary challenge of building inexpensively yet responsibly in New York City. The clients, a jewelry designer and a hip-hop record producer, wanted to construct a new home - incorporating studios for both of them - on an empty lot in a rapidly developing neighborhood of Brooklyn. As an urban condition, the property is defined by the shared sidewalls of the two existing adjacent buildings. Rather than insulating, framing and cladding these walls, it was decided to leave their exposed surfaces as found, incorporating them as the new interior condition of the building and thereby eliminating considerable additional construction. Similarly, brick found on site was supplemented with other recycled brick to form the pure rectangular wall on the street façade. Material and detail both serve and reinforce an unapologetic directness of construction. The resulting interior feels curiously suspended between the space of borrowed walls, a fitting backdrop for the lives of two urban artists.
