Broadway Duplex

The Broadway Duplex Project investigates how a ceiling can reveal ways of making a home feel more generous within the urban confines of New York City. 

The project lies within a large post-war residential building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that evolved through the spatial tension of New York’s zoning code and the harnessing of natural light.

Initially combining two duplex apartments at the top of a tall, “wedding cake” building form, the design merged existing programmatic redundancies (2 kitchens, 2 master bedrooms). From that point on, the residence became shaped by the desire to harvest all available vertical dimension amidst massive structural beams and columns that navigated the stepped terraces of the zoning envelope.

New York, NY

Completed 2017

2018 NYCxDesign | ICFF | Interior Design Magazine Finalist

The ceilings on each floor are designed as continuous planes that run from one end of the apartment to the other, occasionally interrupted by rooms, or implied separations.

The interplay between fumed oak, blackened steel, and white wall planes creates stark contrasts, like a dark line on white paper.

A new staircase connects the living floor to the sleeping floor within an existing stair opening. The existing apartment possessed two staircases and one was filled in to produce a more generous master suite on the upper floor. The stair is designed to maximize natural light and navigate a tight corner.

A powder room is tucked into a corner of an intermediate stair landing to enable guest access just off the main entertaining spaces of the house. Upon entering, one is greeted by a single slab sand blasted marble.

Maintaining clear, unobstructed spaces extended to the design of storage as well. A floating credenza sits adjacent to a wall of storage closets that wrap around structural columns and risers. In this manner, the storage smooths out the irregularities of the spaces, organizing the objects of life while making more room for it.

While the ceiling is partially bound by immovable structural limitations, a careful syncopation of light coves and recesses outline its pure form.

Material finishes for the bathrooms are an interplay of visually quiet, natural white marbles and more vibrant slabs of stone and colored glazed tiles.

The project site had previously been a pair of duplex apartments. Because of this, columns, plumbing risers, and structural beams are found throughout the apartment. Every space was designed to function seamlessly, streamline the geometric chaos caused by the old infrastructure, and unify the palette across the entire residence.

Photography By Devon Banks Photography

Back to Residential Work