New York, NY

The Avant Chelsea, a twelve-story residential condominium, occupies a tight and challenging site in Chelsea. The design maximizes permissible building size within the guidelines of the New York City zoning resolution through an unconventional array of setbacks that add bedrooms and exterior terraces to the uppermost four stories of the building. The design of the 40,000 square-foot building balances the demands of a limited construction budget through an artful proportioning of a standard window-wall system, and deployment of an indigo-hued rain-screen cladding made of 12mm thick fibrous cement panels. The panels effect a visual code in the design that at once recognizes structure – the asymmetrical disposition of major and minor columns – and opaque enclosure. The exterior color – a variance from bright white to dark blue – provides a distinctive identity to a project ubiquitous, the residential condominium tower, in the New York landscape.