Smart Loft Soho Condominium

Type: Ground up

Building: 24 Private Residences

Duration: Upon request

Size: 80000 sq. ft.

Location: Manhattan - Soho, NY

Scope: Located on the edge of SoHo, NYC, we converted this former six-story warehouse into an 11-story ‘smart loft’ luxury condominium by wrapping and extending the original masonry structure with an innovative new building envelope, culminating in the iconic “glass waterfall” façade towards the city street. The mixed-use building contains 25 lofts and a guest apartment, a gym, pool, sauna and wine cellar, as well as an art gallery and retail store on the ground floor. By creatively re-interpreting the strict setback rules of the NYC Building Code, we managed to break the limitations of the predominantly orthogonal urban context and create a highly efficient and uniquely shaped new vertical typology. The buildings’ characteristic folded glass facade was the first of its kind in New York, parametrically designed and engineered, and pre-fabricated in Barcelona, Hong Kong and Brooklyn. Its thin steel verticals and horizontal aluminum fins create the sensation of a horizontally striated, floating surface, providing stunning uninterrupted views over the Hudson River. At night the building transforms into a luminous urban body, animated by the glow of the residential lofts. LOFT 8B This one of a kind loft apartment located on the 8th floor, on top of the existing warehouse, features several exposures, including a double height portion of the folded west-facing glass facade, and a roof terrace. We extended the morphology of the glass façade into an organically faceted spine at the center of the loft. The spine consists of two walls, containing private areas such as the bedrooms and bathrooms, thus at once separating and connecting the residential functions within a unifying volume. Its surface is clad with bogwood, a semi-fossilized oak, contrasted with deep blue glass surfaces enclosing the bathrooms, creating an atmosphere that is at once solid, archaic, and radiantly modern.