CHELSEA APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
2019

Commissioned by an art collector and film editor living in a garden apartment in Chelsea, the program was to provide an art wall, a new kitchen and a communal area for dining in an open space.

Stripping the walls back to the original brick and painted white provides a textured backdrop for art.  The new kitchen, located centrally in the apartment, opens to both the front and back rooms with views to the gardens.  The custom arc table provides a natural flow for circulation and the shape references the curve of vintage film reels.  The classically modern palette of walnut, stone and steel compliments the reclaimed oak flooring and revived masonry wall of the original structure.

General Contractor: Galo General Contractor
Photography: Alex Guimaraes

PARK AVENUE RESIDENCE
NEW YORK, NY
2018

Initially conceived as an investigation in “thresholds”, this project took shape when our Clients acquired their neighboring unit and engaged us to combine both individual apartments into one.

Each intervention is defined as a moment of "passing through."  Two wooden boxes bookend the apartment with a continuous open space in-between the two.  Floating in the main space is the hearth wall; a modern remnant marking the line between the new and the old.  Passing through each of these "thresholds" demarcates the change in program for each space, i.e.: Living to Dining, Dining to Kitchen, Living to Sleeping.

The primary "threshold" is for public living.  Situated precisely between the existing concrete structure of the apartment and wrapped entirely in warm white oak, a modern box contains a powder room, a pantry, the back wall of the kitchen and the breakfast room - a room you can pass through.  Separating the kitchen from the formal living space, the wooden box is lifted up, gesturing an elevated spirit for family gathering.  With a lowered wood ceiling, the compression of space is complimented by diffused light created by the slatted window screens, creating an intimate volume.  Reveals between the wooden panels provide functioning details of concealed lighting and air distribution.  This space is the conduit for typical public passage while the box is cradled by the existing structure.

The second "threshold" is entirely private.  Also conceived of in wood, this box connects the living space to the secluded master suite.  Containing the dressing room, with access to the master bathroom, this passage is again wrapped in white oak, with a depressed ceiling, but extends into the master suite providing concealed storage.

The last "threshold" is the floating fireplace wall.  Finished with hand-troweled plaster and floating steel blade mantels, the hearth references the old demising wall that originally separated the two apartments.  Fitted with a double-sided firebox, allowing visual passage through the wall, it stands within the new open living space as a modern reminder of the wall that was once there.

Interiors: CAROLEGAN INTERIORS
General Contractor: HI Interiors
Photography: Richard Powers

QUOGUE BEACH HOUSE
QUOGUE, NY
UNBUILT, 2016

On the southern fork of Long Island, the Atlantic Ocean laps at the coastal line of dunes.  This Work is the reimagining and reinvention of an existing house shielded by those dunes.  With an interior that is largely intended to remain with its existing organization, the house is at once closed to the road, while simultaneously making its relationship with the sea its primary purpose.

MOONLIGHT, FIRE LIGHT
NEW YORK, NY
UNBUILT, 2016

This house on the Upper Eastside in New York City has on its roof an existing Penthouse, used as a home office.  This Work addresses the interior of that Penthouse, while also providing for a more intimate relationship between the office space and the terraces at the front and rear of the house.

At the center of the front terrace is an existing glass block skylight into the Master Bathroom below.  The Work also reevaluates the nature of that Bathroom, crafting a space of stone, wood and steel, with an open shower at its core.  That shower sits below the same glass block skylight, providing the opportunity for the skylight to act as a filter between daylight/moonlight in the Bathroom below.  Simultaneously, the skylight evokes the sense of a fire pit around its gathering place on the terrace above.

SUMMERHILL
TORONTO, ON
2017

In the neighbourhood of Summerhill in Toronto is a series of similar houses built in the late 80s.  The intent of this Work is to reconfigure the interior of the house such that its inherent horizontality and verticality are emphasized.  The stair between the first and second floors is reconstructed to slip into the existing three story space.  The stair between the second and third floors is rotated to run perpendicular to the first, creating an independent means of circulation in the house, and offering a greater sense of place at both the second and third floors.  This stair is set partially within the mass of the second floor such that a quarter of the stair is cantilevered over the living room of the first floor.

Arriving on the third floor is a moment of pause, with a lounge created as a loft between the front and back bedrooms and overlooking the spaces below.

The rear of the house is reconstructed in a way that reveals the stark whiteness of the massing of the house within the existing brick shell.

Interior Designer: Croma Design
Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Derek Nicholson Construction Inc.
General Contractor’s Foreman: Eliot Callahan
Photographer: Scott Norsworthy

AMAGANSETT HOUSE
AMAGANSETT, NY
ON THE BOARDS

This house in Amagansett affords the Owner an expanse of East to West space beneath its heavy, singular gable roof.  The intent with this Work is to expand the space of the first floor to reach towards the yard at the rear of the house in a way that brings the Owner to the sunlight at the South.  The Kitchen opens the corner of the volume to the Northeast and breaks the formality of the roof above.  Both moves play on the formality of the gabled roof.

At the Southeast corner of the property is a pergola, at once dug into the ground while simultaneously reaching up to provide a sun shelter.

SAN DIEGO HOUSE
SAN DIEGO, CA
2017

Located in the Bankers Hill neighborhood of San Diego, this house positions itself as a clean volume of white, reflecting the intensity of the Southern California sun.  At just 1600 sf, the efficiency of the organization is critical.  The house is conceived as an L in plan with a 12 foot tall Living Room occupying the implied void of the L on the first floor - a sort of pavilion within the house.  The result on the second floor is a series of spaces in constant engagement with light.

A large cedar trellis cantilevers to the South providing a place of shade from the high Summer sun, but with cedar blades set an the angle of the Winter solstice, allowing lines of light and shadow to give definition to the surface of the house.

A detached 500 sf companion unit occupies the rear of the property, mimicking the language of the house, and providing a separate dwelling for guests.

Structural Engineer: Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger
General Contractor: Precision Homes Inc.
Photography: Scott Norsworthy

EAST VILLAGE LOFT
NEW YORK, NY
2016

The design for this East Village Loft employs a singular line gesture to redefine the open space. Following the angle of the existing hall, two new angled walls continue the vanishing line to define the bedrooms, eventually terminating shy of the open loft beyond.  The project is an exercise in restraint; from the plan being defined by a single gesture to the reduced material palette of wood, brick, concrete, plaster and glass.

Interiors: CAROLEGAN INTERIORS
General Contractor: D Edgar, Inc.

BAY OF QUINTE
BAY OF QUINTE, ON
ON THE BOARDS

This Work explores incidental interventions on a property on the Bay of Quinte in Ontario.  Originating at the existing house on the property, the inhabitants are taken on a tour through their property, which passes through the forest, arriving at a Living Pavilion.  Stone benches lead to a Dock on the Bay.  Light stanchions mark the path from the Dock to the Sauna, and a path opens to a clearing where a play space is created next to the house.

The Living Pavilion itself is focused on the five classical elements of Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and the elusive Ether of nothingness. 

UTAH SUMMIT
EDEN, UT
UNBUILT, 2014

We were approached by a previous client of ours, who had purchased the end unit in a yet-to-be-constructed row of ten town houses on Powder Mountain.  Their unit was initially conceived as a hinged piece of a larger fractured landscape.

Conceived as a building with a fractured roof, mimicking a sheet of ice, we looked to metaphors of the snow covered terrain to inform the design. The fractured roof line opens up a skylight above. The slatted front facade reflects the density of the Aspen grove behind the site. Contrasting the fabric of the front facade, the rear all glass facade allows internal views to expand outward into the western mountains beyond. 

When the new owners of the adjacent properties turned to the developers to create their units, OMAS:WORKS withdrew from the process in order to aid in our client's engagement with the organizers.

EAST END SEMI
TORONTO, ON
2017

The Semi-detached home is ubiquitous in Toronto.  The renovation and addition to this house is intended to look at the extent to which the house could be transformed into a Semi, Detached.  Formally, the house is at once part of its mirror image, while simultaneously pulling away, creating its own identify.  The overlap of the two is what is interesting to us.

Light is critical in a house such as this.  The stair from the first to second floors is along the party wall, as is common in this typology.  The deviation comes when the stair turns to cross the house as it rises from the second to third floor.  That crossing provides for an opportunity to experience the verticality of the house, with a skylight above, and an opening below, inviting light into the core of the narrow building.

Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Derek Nicholson Construction Inc.
Photographer: Scott Norsworthy

GREENWICH PENTHOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
2015

The interior for this Greenwich Village Penthouse is driven by a playful investigation of materials and form. The bold brass shine of the staircase is contrasted with the soft powdery matt finish of the central fireplace. The greens and blues of the kitchen lighten as they reach the ceiling.  Upstairs, the bathrooms are both serene and highly detailed. Every surface in this penthouse is a considered study in materiality and the contrasts of each change. 

Interiors: Andy Goldsborough Interior Design
General Contractor: STERN PROJECTS
Photography: Richard Powers

PARK AVENUE PENTHOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
2016

This Work inhabits the top three stories of an Upper Eastside apartment building.  The lowest level, the 15th floor, is dedicated to the family, with five bedrooms and a live-in caretaker's room.  The fore of the apartment, a family room and kitchen, is separated from the entrance to the apartment by a folded plate white stair and clear glass partition, leading the entrant upwards to the 16th floor, where the space has been treated as a singular environment of dining and living, surrounded by a terrace of plantings.  Through a door of blackened ash, the occupant moves up through a circuitous stair, and arrives at the master suite.

The intent of the Work is to develop a layering of spatial interest that at once looks inward towards the means by which the spaces are defined, while simultaneously making all efforts to engage the exterior of the building, and the light and view brought to the apartment by its small footprint.

Interiors & Photographs courtesy of: Timothy Brown Studio
Landscaping: Gunn Landscape Architecture
Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management Inc.

MAMARONECK PLAYHOUSE
MAMARONECK, NY
COMPETITION, 2013

The proposed design for the adaptive reuse of the vaudeville Mamaroneck Playhouse begins backstage in the existing building. Here remains a shuttered-in cathedral vault of playhouse scenes still hanging by ropes from the cavernous ceiling. This volume inspires the development of a grand new entrance located at the back of the building. The new entry not only caters to the building’s proposed program of apartments, but also provides a theatrical communal space that forms part of an ‘internal street’ within the building linking Main St to Phillips Park Road.

Rather than add height to this existing volume, the design descends another story down into the basement level, removing the old backstage floor. Opening the back wall and excavating grade from the back facade, a new ramp gently cuts through the landscape to meet the sidewalk and parking lot. Services and concierge amenities are located on both ends of the entry, and a grand staircase ascends upward towards a circulation core encased in glass. This theatrical circulation and vertical ascent within the building evokes notions of scenes being raised and lowered onto a stage platform; an ever-changing backdrop of place.

Alongside the ideas of live acting, vaudeville and the stage, also contributing to the diagrammatic motif for developing the plans and sections are the projector, the film and the lens. Vanishing points and views with angles, long and sharp, evoke focal points of light and image projection across the theatre space and onto the screen. The proportions of space throughout the building are organized around the aspect ratio of the movie screen.

The original facade on Mamaroneck Avenue remains, and through its historic openings, the lobby extends, ramping downward to become a new public arcade taking its cues from the building’s original interior of arches and balconies. The repetition of columns, which flare through the circulation with an angular rhythm, play on themes of solid and void, light and shadow. It is almost as if the footsteps on the new stone floor are simulating the clacking of the spinning film projector.

With retail and commercial space organized along the commercial main street, the proposed residential component of the program fits within the volume of the old theatre. Looking to keep the building’s original footprint and facade as intact as possible, new cuts have been made into the black box to allow light to fill the apartment dwellings and common spaces. Like a curtain about to be lifted or drawn, vertical slices occur at the buildings existing corners, removing the structure and allowing wide slivers of light to penetrate the old box. Where slices do not occur, bricks are removed from the walls in repetitious pattern, creating new screens allowing light to filter to the spaces within.

HUDSON HOUSE
HUDSON, NY
2014

Following the recent purchase of this 18th century Federal style town house, a private art dealer and her husband brought us on board with a team of carefully selected modern designers to strip back centuries of neglect of this mortise and tenon house. Hailing from the historic whaling town of Hudson, our new details refine existing openings and structure with careful proportions. Employing the whaling ship as an architectural reference, the slender lines of steel and wood evoke the spareness of marine design. New fabrics will hang like sails from rope drawn rods above windows and the vertical beams now exposed ascend to the crow’s nest attic above. A new kitchen of stainless steel, concrete, stone and black lacquer becomes the bridge and gang-plank between the historic frame of the house and more-recent addition, which extends west into the landscaped garden, towards the horizon and Hudson River.

Our client has now collaborated with Interior Designer, Andy Goldsborough, and have opened the first floor as their private art gallery and design shop, The Gilded Owl. NOW OPEN!

Interiors: Andy Goldsborough Interior Design
General Contractor: De Forrest Renovation & Restoration

CAMBRIDGE FIRE BOARDROOM
CAMBRIDGE, ON
2014

This room is the Boardroom for the Cambridge Fire Headquarters as well as the backup Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for the Town of Cambridge.  A single room in the core of an existing building, our strategy turned to one of distinction and resonance with the intent of the Department.  The room is wrapped in soft maple boards, roasted by fire to bring out its rich inner tones.  A roasted maple box projects from the joint between the maple and the angled white ceiling planes. OMAS:WORKS was contracted by, and worked under, good friend and near Fire Chief himself, Chris Kubbinga, at Thomas Brown Architects.

Architect: Thomas Brown Architects
General Contractor: PM Contracting
Photography: Bob Gundu

SKYROOM I
NEW YORK, NY
2013

General Contractor: G. Garrity Contracting Corp.

C. NICHOLS PROJECT
MAR VISTA, CA
2013

Gallery photographs courtesy C. Nichols Project
General Contractor: LANDLOCD

LAND HOUSE
MEAFORD, ONTARIO
2014

A year round cottage minutes from Georgian Bay in Meaford, Ontario, this house derives its form and space from the simplicity of a traditional gabled dogtrot, a typology familiar in the southern US, but less so in northern climates.  With the sleeping areas to one side of the breezeway, and the living to the other, the 16foot square opening in the centre of the house provides the Owner with an outdoor living room that keeps them intimately engaged in their environment.

The house sits on the brow of a clearing adjacent to wetlands and a winding ravine.  With an interior entirely of plywood and white oak flooring, it is a spare wooden container in the Ontario woods.

The exterior of the house is horizontal untreated tongue and groove cedar boards left to weather to a silver grey.  The roof is corrugated steel.  Connecting the house to the landscape, the earth slopes upwards, passing through the breezeway at its centre.

Landscape Designer: Joel Loblaw, Inc.
Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Clancy Builders Ltd.
Photography: Studio Shai Gil

AMAGANSETT FIRE
AMAGANSETT, NY
2013

A returning client requested a new grille, cooking surface and pizza oven. Amagansett Fire is a 14 foot long brick bar culminating in a turret at its end, on axis with the 90 foot long rear porch of the existing house. The bricks continue to the ground as a walking surface while dissolving into the grass at their perimeter.

General Contractor: Greg D'Angelo Construction

TILT HOUSE
SAGAPONACK, NY
2013

When the design work began in 2012, the architecture for revising this 1980s “spec-house” was originally conceived of as an intervention of the "tilt." Looking to the twin peaked roofs that ascend to frame the preserved farm fields to the west, each insertion is an instance of the sectional tilt: a reprise that unifies the whole.

On the exterior, the design recalls the shed roofs and cedar shingles of traditional farmhouses, but this vernacular is opened with a transparency that allows light to penetrate and views to reach out to the adjoining pastures. These are the new Kitchen and Dining spaces, adjacent to the pool that extends west and reflects the blue of the sky. Fully transparent, the interior is released from the bounds of the walls, blending living space to the outside. The new double peaked roof, a result of an immovable beam, references the present twin roofs of the main house.

Within, contrasting materials of rosewood, oak, bronzed steel, and cool concrete are illuminated by light streaming through high glass panes.  Further inward, the living spaces echo angled profiles with light and shadow. The resin walnut panels cast angular tones of warm shadow in the family room, both shielding and cooling the room from the summer heat. The exposed rafters and crisp ceilings of the living room suggest the repeating rooflines. The tilt again appears in the gently creased modern planes of the Master shower room. Carved from Corian, and contained in glass, the room evokes the classicism of soft marble bath houses. And beyond, the bronze and greyed oak furniture of the Master Suite reinforce the vaulted ceiling above. Behind the massive wood slab, a pivoting hinged door exposes the upward-angled double height stair well, giving way to another tilting moment which invites the sky and blue down its end wall in an otherwise crisp white surrounding.

The architecture and the landscape, the exterior shapes and the interior spaces, seek to balance the contrasting dialogue by bookending the site with an expansive horizon and the verticality of the sky.  The plantings and the weathering of materials will change and enhance as brilliant summer sun becomes golden winter light, gracing the site with varied textures and colors.

Interiors: Christopher Coleman Interior Design
Landscape Designer: Joel Loblaw Inc.
Construction Manager: I.E. Construction Management, LLC
Photography: Ty Cole

DARK HOUSE
THUNDER BAY, ON
2013

Built on a modest infill lot in downtown Thunder Bay, this house makes a simple comment on its context.  The iconic gabled form mimics its neighbours in silhouette.  Its dark palette is a counterpart to the inevitable snow.  Within the small footprint of the house, the stair is used as a device by which to vary the space, providing perspectives through the house, and a grandeur of verticality unexpected in a building of this size.  Limited space, here, is an asset.

General Contractor: Wagenaar Carpentry Ltd.
Photography: Scott Norsworthy

POP TOP HOUSE ADDITION
TORONTO, ON
UNBUILT, 2012

In Toronto’s East End is a house shared by two families. One family occupies the first floor and the front half of the second, while another family inhabits the back half of the second floor and all of the third. With the need to expand their space, a stair is to be constructed between the third floor and this singular room popping up from the attic. A gable roof is rotated to span the ridge from corner to corner and give the popup a sense of space that pushes up and out at its street side corner. A polycarbonate band brings a continuous sense of light and openness into the small room.

LODGE HOUSE
BALLYMONEY, IRELAND
2014

On a southern drive from Dublin, leaving horizontal slicing rains, across acres of game land and fox hunts, and upon the coastal edge of Muir Eireann, sits the Lodge House. 

A dose-and-a-half of Knackers, clamped or be towed, but come as you may and don't leave until you're proper Craic! A real proper get-a-way, (no, please, I really mean, GET AWAY!) a death-defying assembly of sticks, brass, concrete and hangovers, the children will always find another way to throw themselves over the floating crib in lullaby.

A vision of sky, of sea, of quiet, of warmth, of wind, of rain, of fire, hunker down with a thick pot in hand, a cube in glass or a skin wrapped tight, this home defines what architecture can and cannot undo - make the Irish sky split in two and cast a brilliant ray of sunshine; but just for a minute.

The very best place made so far, for family, for friends, for husbands and wives, for sisters and brothers, for mothers and fathers, for children and dolls and toys, we hope this home weaves through your lives and memories just as the poison ran through our veins to make the walls disappear and the sky open up, for another smiling face to call their own.

Interiors: CAROLEGAN INTERIORS
Construction Manager: Shepherd Contracting, Ltd.

FIFTH AVENUE APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
UNBUILT, 2011

THROUGH HOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
2013

The top two floors and a portion of the roof of this 18 story building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side were joined to form a single unit.  In exploring the vertical connection between the two, perpendicular planes made of wood, plaster and glass slip through openings in the floor, giving visual vertical connection to what is typically only a horizontal relationship.  Volumes of space straddle the two levels, creating both interior skylights and vitrines, connecting the inhabitants to their entire home.

Lighting Designer: Richard J. Shaver Architectural Lighting
Structural Engineer (Building): DeSimone Consulting Engineers
Structural Engineer (Glass Stair Enclosure): Eckersley O'Callaghan & Partners
General Contractor: J. Balaz & Associates, Ltd.
Photography: Ty Cole

TOWNHOUSE COURTYARD
NEW YORK, NY
UNBUILT, 2011

WEST SIDE APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
2012

This renovation to a newly constructed apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is an exercise in implied boundaries. Leaving the existing location of the original rooms largely intact, our work stitches those spaces together by eliminating walls and employing operable planes and blades that open and imply spaces and closures behind the lofted living space. The simple notch joint used in wood joinery is embodied in the spatial plan between wall and ceiling. The shift in material changes illustrates the joint and occurs at the junction between concrete and wood, stone and wood and steel and wood.

Interiors: Andy Goldsborough Interior Design
General Contractor: VGC NYC Inc.

TRIBECA APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
2012

Interiors: Bachman Brown Design
General Contractor: Robertson-Tait
Photography: Lora Appleton

CHELSEA LOFT
NEW YORK, NY
2012

An art collector purchased this apartment in an old Life Saver factory and asked that we rid it of its staid interior renovation and reinvigorate the space with a materiality that points to the age of its former life.  Our work begins by opening the primary space as a gallery for the owner’s art collection.  The Family Room is surrounded in vertical roasted poplar boards and an identical ceiling that bends up and fans out into the Gallery.  A new Kitchen of concrete, white lacquer, back-painted glass and roasted poplar greets visitors across from the entrance to the apartment.

Interiors: Jarlath Mellett
Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.
Photography: Richard Powers

SCOOTER HOUSE I
TORONTO, ON
2011

This little shed was built to provide the Owner with storage for his seemingly constant turnover of Vespa scooters.  A DIY repair shop, the drop down door doubles as a work surface.  The materiality and shape of the shed is a mirror of the existing Kitchen extension of the house.  With no electricity brought to the shed, the roof is held off the perimeter walls by a clerestory of polycarbonate, an inexpensive but beautiful material offering an invitation to the light.

General Contractor: Owner

GRAMERCY LOFT
NEW YORK, NY
2011

Once a brewery, this building underwent a conversion years ago.  What remained was the skeleton of a building which we used as a point of departure for this Work.
Employing a simple palette of steel, white oak, plaster and stone, the insertion into this loft is intended to move lightly in and around the existing context.

Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.
Photography: Andrew French

PARK AVENUE APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
2010

Looking to re-vitalize their home to be more inline with their lives, our Clients requested a design that would provide a backdrop of light and surface which would allow their furnishings and art to float within the Architecture. Looking to planar surfaces and translucent materials, the strategy implemented allows the Owners to always be within daylight’s reach.  The lighting system replicates this feel in the evenings, illuminating the backdrop surfaces, for a consistent feel of brightness. Walls were treated as dividing surfaces with thickness and weight. Ceilings were treated as thin blades, defining the space below and oriented to reflect and cast light. Encompassing nearly 3,000 square feet, the renovation included the Living/Dining space, Kitchen, Bedroom Chambers, a Study, Master Bedroom/Bathroom Suite and three additional bathrooms. Custom furniture and finely crafted details employed the use of etched glass, oil-rubbed bronze, steel, macassar ebony, horn, stone and Venetian plaster.

Interiors: Andy Goldsborough Interior Design
General Contractor: Timocon Interior Construction, Inc.

NEWARK VISITOR'S CENTER
NEWARK, NJ
COMPETITION, 2009

Sited between the Passaic River and the former Morris Canal, the Newark Visitors Center recalls the historical conditions under which Newark thrived at the turn of the century. The public component of the building is a raised volume, reminiscent of a barge now lifted on its modern dry dock. This body is wrapped in wood reclaimed from old Passaic piers and docks while treated on the city side with a glass skin reflecting the inhabitants of the streets below while offering constant views of the occupants above. Below, a new section of canal is cut into the site adjacent to its ancient location. The canal grounds the building in this particular place and comments on the experience of the building and of a visitor’s understanding of the city. Pedestrians and vehicular traffic entering Newark along this edge are offered a reminder of the historical current which once dominated the streets of Newark.

Bisecting the site stands a volume of reclaimed brick, a material that helped make the city but now often finds itself in the landfill. This mass contains the administrative functions of the Center while providing a terrace and public access for the public. At the northwest corner of the site, the water from the new canal is urged to cover the wet terrace, providing a place for public gathering.

Across Jersey Street, the Passaic River is invited to approach the building, offering the future opportunity for a recreational waterscape while a bridge crosses the new inlet beyond.

FIFTH AVENUE RESIDENCE
NEW YORK, NY
2011

Collaborating with the innovative designer Carol Egan, together we renovated this 2600 sf apartment overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park.  Our detailing paired with Carol’s design and assembly of vintage and new custom furniture and furnishings allowed a fresh modern craft to compliment the classic warmth of the existing pre-war building.  Our work focused on the assembly and construction of finely crafted unique furniture pieces as well as detailing the interiors and exterior terrace spaces.  A palette of white oak, aged walnut, bronze and patinaed metals anchors the original rooms together and unifies the traditional apartment layout with its new modern insertions.

Interiors & Furniture Design: CAROLEGAN INTERIORS
General Contractor: Hite Construction
Photography: Richard Powers courtesy CAROLEGAN INTERIORS

MUSEUM OF POLISH HISTORY
WARSAW, POLAND
COMPETITION, 2009

Reviving the connection between Skarpa Wislana and the streets of Warsaw, the new Museum of Polish History bridges the historical components and axes of the Royal Route.

The new Museum grounds itself in a modern aesthetic, placing new foundations adjacent to the neighboring stones upon which its history is presented. Exposing tiers of economical, political, and cultural strata, the new Museum of Polish History looks ahead with new generations of Polish citizens while grounding itself in the strength of its physical and cultural history.

The new Museum sits half-buried in the site while its roof, volumes and landscape bridge the skarpa. By uniting the landscape that is currently interrupted by the Trasa Lazienkowska, the building allows its visitors to experience its architecture from within and without.

Main entrances of the museum are approached from the North, East, and West. The Eastern approach is from below the Royal Castle, Zamek Ujazdowski. At the lower plaza level, visitors enter via a modern concrete triangular tunnel with apertures pointing upwards to the castle above. This approach brings its visitors through a long dark space into the lower open forum which joins the other entrances.

The approach from the west is a gradual descent from above to the main reception entrance of the upper forum. The receiving volume, with its vertical shifts addressing the various entrances, becomes the newly defined focus of the new axes. This Western approach is slightly off-axis of the Royal Castle, thus strengthening the original Trakt Krolewski.

The Museum entry from the North across the trasa is from existing park paths. This path is anchored by the gateway of the museum’s Education wing and is braced by the heavy stone wall which establishes a strong edge between the skarpa and Trasa Lazienkowska. This edge accentuates the topographic fortification of the embankment utilized in Warsaw’s previous centuries. The stone wall, made from stacked layers of varying stones alludes to the strata of the ground plane held behind this retained edge. As visitors walk the exterior path along the wall and approach the museum, the path enters the building; the visitor is slipped into the building. The wall becomes the moment of within, taking visitors past the shops and public services to the main forum reception while subtly exposing the layers of different stones that have built Warsaw’s place in history.

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY
NEW YORK, NY
2009

Initiated in the early 90s, Paul Taylor Dance Company hired Architect James Dart to provide their growing dance studio a new space.  In early 2009, the company entered a long-term lease for a new studio and headquarters in the Lower East Side, New York City.

Teaming up again with their long time mentor James Dart, OMAS:WORKS assisted James Dart’s studio, DARCHITECTS, throughout the Design, Documentation and Construction Phases of the project.  Set on the second floor of the original 1955 Corlears Hook Project at the corner of Grand and Madison Streets, this 12,000 square foot renovation opened its doors to its Dancers in time for the Winter 2009/2010 Seasonal Performances.

All images and drawings courtesy DARCHITECTS.

Architect: DARCHITECTS
General Contractor: Corcon

CITY CARRIAGE HOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
2009

Using materials to compliment the turn-of-the-century structure, this project renovates and restores this 6600 square foot 1903 Carriage House.

We reinvented the existing spaces with a language speaking to our time and the family’s lifestyle. The Owners, avid wine collectors, helped shape and inspire this selection. White Oak reclaimed from sherry casks was used to create the Kitchen doors and Family Room desk. Blackened steel was used at the entry doors and suspended stair, evoking the history of the original hay lofts and industrial mechanics. The existing opening in the rear wall was expanded and framed with steel and glass to allow more daylight into the family’s everyday space. The existing wood floors throughout were sanded, rubbed with white lye and sealed with what is typically a stone sealer. In the Kitchen and Family room, new radiant heated concrete floors were poured and polished.  The walls are a rough, white plaster while the ceilings are smooth and reflective Venetian plaster.

The upper floors carry this aesthetic through but with a softer hand. Bathrooms are tiled in white statuary marble while the bedrooms received muted tones. The top floor holds a glass box gym at its center, allowing daylight from the skylight to traverse the floor, diffusing the light within the upper landing gallery and library foyer.

Interiors: Nathan Egan Interiors
Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.

MADISON AVENUE APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
2008

The intent of this Work was to cast a broad sweep across the 2800 square foot Upper East Side apartment to provide a general cleanup of a previous conversion executed several years prior as well as to address some of the family’s newer interests.

While the program included full renovation to the existing bathrooms and kitchen, as well as miscellaneous alterations and millwork throughout, the crux of the design centered around a previously awkward ”swing-space” which provides a recreation room for the children with an optional private guest room.

As is typical in many New York City buildings, the apartment was scattered with existing pipes, mechanical chases and structural elements. Our intervention engages these existing constraints, largely through the use of millwork, to effectively open up relationships between rooms.

Interiors: Andy Goldsborough Interior Design
General Contractor: Van Gogh General Contracting Company

LIGHT WELL
NARROWSBURG, NY
UNBUILT, 2008

During the course of construction for Work 32, the Owner discovered an old well on the property.  We were asked to create something to give this old well a new life.

This Work is conceived of as a stone blue stone volume, cored out at its center to highlight the well.  It secondarily is cut diagonally along the line of the sun's rays an hour before sunset on the Summer Solstice, giving not only new life to its form, but to its use.

LAKE HOUSE
ELDRED, NY
2009

Sited on a steep slope at the edge of a lake, the design of this new deck extends the main floor of a 1970s split level house to the outside, creating an exterior living room surrounded by the tree canopy of hemlocks. At its seasonal peak, the deck becomes a platform for outdoor living, with views to the lake. The lower deck mediates between the lake activities of swimming, kayaking, canoeing and the property, while an elevated enclosed outdoor shower connects the lower and upper decks, reinforcing the action between the participants and water.

Interiors: Cherie Zucker, Inc.
General Contractor: Leavenworth Construction

CARRIAGE HOUSE
NARROWSBURG, NY
2016

Originally a 19th century carriage house, this Work converts this old frame into a writer’s studio and guest house, which connects to the adjacent barn the Owner, a film director, renovated himself several years prior.

The original mortise and tenon timber framing has been stripped.  The shell of the building is composed of reclaimed hemlock, field stone, steel, tin and polycarbonate.  Set back from the edges of the interior framework lies a singular volume of white pine, housing two sleeping quarters, dressing room and powder room with a lounge and writer’s studio in the loft above.

Inspired by the county’s surrounding neglected farm buildings, the north wall, faced in clear polycarbonate panels, is further protected with reclaimed hemlock planks randomly spaced as a rain screen across the exterior face.  The effect evokes the quality of a barn in ruin with slits of light and silhouettes.  The west wall, clad entirely in polycarbonate panels provides a faint view of the exterior while the window above the writer’s desk frames the lake below, evoking in metaphor the director’s view through his camera’s lens.

General Contractors: Scott Clark & John Lust