Elemental

The project includes the interior design of new 26 room, $12 million dollar LEED Gold (projected) boutique hotel interior. At just under 19,000 sf, the hotel is anticipated to be the first 'green' boutique hotel in New York City and serve as a showcase for sustainable practices and 'green' products. More

This new 30,000 sf, $9.5 million high-performance office building will provide an expanded regional administrative center for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The building is the DEC’s first project designed under New York State’s Executive Order 111 and is projected to achieve a LEED “Gold” rating. The building makes extensive use of day lighting, direct solar gain and air stratification with automated shading integrated with lighting controls. Long span steel trusses allow for an expansive open workspace, flooding the main space with natural light. In addition, the new building is also DEC’s first building to implement its new storm-water design regulations for New York State. The site design takes advan... More

The new headquarters for Rescue Co. 1 is home to the first fire rescue company in the United States. The project was executed within a highly compressed schedule following the destruction of the original headquarters when an adjacent building collapsed. The new building includes salvaged and reinstalled stone and ironwork from the original Napoleon LeBrun facade. The design included several features developed in conjunction with Rescue Company 1 including open showers and drains on the apparatus floor and overhead suspension of various pieces of large rescue equipment including a Zodiac boat. This equipment can be lowered and attached to the truck roof within the time it takes for the overhead door to open. More

This $150 million dollar project has entailed the reconstruction of a 400,000 SF landmark building built shortly after the turn of the 20th Century, and in fact, the first building built for public higher education in the United States. The client has been the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York acting as agent for CUNY. Exterior work has included reconstructing the entire building shell including replacing 65,000 different pieces of ornamental terra cotta with new durable thin-shell GFRC. Interior work has included restoration of the Great Hall, interior stairs and a complete evaluation of fire safety systems, IT systems and mechanical systems. This building is now restored to its place as the centerpiece of the City Universit... More

The cross section of the 6,000 sf Interpretive Center serves as a gateway to the site surrounding the house where Walt Whitman was born. The facility admits controlled daylight and segregates hot air for exhaust during swing seasons, minimizing the need for air conditioning. The use of exposed structure dramatically reduced the need for applied architectural finishes while establishing a vocabulary that is sympathetic to the early nineteenth century birthplace house. Exhibits on the wall form a reverse time line, beginning with the mature Whitman who is most familiar and leads back through his formative years to his birth point. More

The National Park Service joined forces with the National Endowment for the Arts to sponsor an open competition to design a monument to the first women’s rights convention in America. The fragmentary remains of the gathering place and the surrounding land would be the centerpiece of the newly established Women’s Rights National Historical Park. An almost ruined building, a lost manuscript: the site challenged designers to create a presence from an absence, a monument to a vanished time that is also a place to gather in the present. The monument is a sanctuary, a place of meeting. The simple quadrangle of open space creates a setting for the chapel, but is also a gathering place in its own right. As if by a heaving of the earth, the grou... More