Young Projects has been commissioned to renovate this old townhouse property in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. An intervention that makes light and color its hallmark and increases exponentially the spatiality of the architectural project.
Young Projects' proposal also provides a small garden that fills the project with light and nature as well as certain flexible spaces that allow different uses.
 

Description of the project by Young Projects

The Wythe Townhouse involves the gut renovation of, and addition to, an existing townhouse on a corner lot in Williamsburg. To satisfy the client’s aspirations of maintaining the existing commercial occupancy on the ground floor while maximizing residential space on the upper floors, the second floor was extended to create one continuous living zone sandwiched between sleeping above and working below. The ground floor footprint remains compact to maximize the floor area ratio (FAR) dedicated to residential space.

This new addition is, from the exterior, undeniably other. A zinc monolith hovers on pilotis over the backyard, bridging between two traditional brick buildings and maintaining the modest budget by minimizing expensive excavation and foundation work. A new garden planted on top of the addition provides an elevated backyard with increased exposure to sunlight and more privacy from the street. This leaves the ground level free for utilitarian uses like sheltered off-street parking and extra storage.

On the interior, the boundary between the existing structure and the new addition is more subtly expressed as both a line of connection and a line of dissonance. It is a conceptual fault line that bisects the living space and sets the stage for a variety of smaller zones. A curtain meanders throughout the new addition providing opportunities for temporary subdivisions within the larger space. The path of the curtain is reflected across the fault line in the sinuous curve of the main stair. This stair winds around the double-height living area of the existing structure, meeting the curtain at a point that ties new to old.

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Architecture
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Young Projects, Bryan Young Principal.
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Collaborators
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Landscape.- Emily Bauer
Construction.- AdvancedBuildingContractors
Structural engineer.- Silman
Electromechanical design engineer.- EngineeringSolutions
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Dates
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Finished in 2016
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Location
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Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
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Areas
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Existing house: Approximately 2,200 sf
New house: Approximately 1,100 sf
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Bryan Young founded the design studio Young Projects in New York City in 2010. The studio produces multidisciplinary work ranging from architecture and art to furniture and objects. Their projects include a 20,000 sf ground-up Retreat and Spa in the Dominican Republic, a townhouse and addition in Williamsburg, free standing houses in the Hamptons and bespoke chandeliers.

Their design process is open to multiple influences and conceptual trajectories. Yet, there is an unique bias to their manner of building, revealed through the conscious manipulation of material and fabrication processes to achieve new aesthetic qualities within each project. This effort has been compiled as a series of experimental analog techniques consisting of cast aluminum, pulled plaster, bent steel, pleated wood, hammered wrought iron and layered concrete.

Young Projects received the 2013 Architectural League Prize, an Architizer A+ award for their 2014 Times Square Heart installation, an Architect’s Newspaper 2015 “Best of Design” for the Gerken Residence in Tribeca and most recently, a 2016 “New Practices” award from AIA NY. Young Projects' built and conceptual projects have been widely published and exhibited.

Bryan Young received his Master of Architecture with distinction from Harvard in 2003, where he was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal and the Thesis Prize for his spatial diagrams on Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. He received his Bachelor of Arts with highest honors from UC Berkeley in 1997. He has taught graduate level architecture design studios and seminars continuously since 2009 at several universities including MIT, Columbia, Parsons and Syracuse. Prior to establishing his studio, Young was a senior associate at Allied Works Architecture; and previously worked at ARO, SOM and Peter Pfau.

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Published on: March 31, 2017
Cite: "Wythe Corner House by Young Projects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/wythe-corner-house-young-projects> ISSN 1139-6415
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