Project:
A 2,500-square-foot restaurant and bar, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Phase:
Completed
Description:
Located at 425 Troutman Street, The Rookery lies at the heart of Bushwick—a former industrial neighborhood which has been transformed into a popular arts and entertainment district. In this post-industrial landscape of rough steel and brick structures, the rezoning of old, industrial warehouses to mixed-use buildings has seen a number of bars, restaurants, shops and galleries emerge. The Rookery is housed in a former truck storage building, with an 18-foot-tall ceiling, and an additional 40 feet of open space on the side of the street. The unbuilt front space on the street was transformed into an enclosed garden, screened off from the street by a porous fence, which leads from the sidewalk, through the indoor portion of the restaurant, and into the rear outdoor space.
The existing exposed steel beams were the aesthetic inspiration for a new layer of structure which encloses the kitchen and bathroom on the ground level, while providing a mezzanine space for the office and storage. The new columns and beams, which wrap around the indoor space on all sides, are also exposed, and continue the expression of an architectural style. The industrial aesthetic of the large, horseshoe-shaped bar and the 18-foot-tall steel cladded back wall contrasts with the refinement of the Moroccan patterned tile floor and the antique wallpaper applied around the banquettes. The Rookery was designed to express the power of architecture, while still maintaining a relaxed and comfortable environment for socializing, drinking and dining.
Project:
A jeanswear showroom in the Garment District of New York City.
Phase:
Completed
Description:
Reliq, an international manufacturer of jeanswear, launched a new showroom in New York in 2005 as part of a global brand re-development. For this project, Frederic Levrat and Farnaz Mansuri collaborated to create a sculptural space to house the showroom’s lighting and display system.
WHITE ON WHITE
A fragmented and faceted monolithic wall functions as the main animator and divider of the space, and also provides the surface from which all supporting furniture and display mechanisms protrude. The thickness of the wall is carved into, allowing a dynamic system of display using extruding rectangular shelving. Each face of the wall relates to the room it simultaneously occupies and divides. The floors and ceiling connect to the monolithic wall and are washed in a bright white finish appropriate for their surface material. The all-white surfaces respond to the varied exposure of light throughout the day, changing shades as the direction of sunlight moves, and illuminating the different depths and surfaces of the room.
Project:
A proposed multi-use urban tower located in Aznavour Square in Yerevan.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
The proposed Yerevan City Center Tower, the tallest building in the country if built, is composed of a twenty-five-story hotel and seventeen-story office, both of which are covered by a veil of modulated horizontal louvers. The layering of the glass curtain and the louver system allows for a separation of functions. The glass curtain wall is made of simple vertical elements, effectively protecting the building from external weather conditions. The modulated louver system operates as a shading device, allowing winter and morning sunlight to penetrate the building, while filtering out summer sunlight. The horizontal louvers change density in relation to the accessibility of views, as the layering of bands opens to allow a full view of the Opera House to the Northeast, and Mount Ararat to the Southwest. Additionally, because the louver system is not responsible for providing a complete weather enclosure, it can more freely stand as an iconic design element.
The City Center Tower operates as a reflection of the city’s visual landscape, as the gaze of the pedestrian is redirected back to the viewpoints indicated by the pattern of the tower’s skin. Though the outer layer of the louvers is highly decorative and expressive, it also effectively reflects this simple process of transformation. It operates as a covering overlaid on the mass of the two towers, akin to the style of traditional Armenian interlaced embroidery (also referred to as Marash embroidery), in which a fine layering of decoration is applied onto a fabric.
Project:
Restaurant on Saint Marks Place
Phase:
Completed
Description:
Saint Marks Place is one of the most active pedestrian street in Manhattan, with dozen of restaurants and coffee shop lining both side of the East Village main cultural axis. Taberna is occupying the lower floor of an old building with direct frontage on the street as well as a generous garden space. The space is used intensively over a 24 hour period, with a catering business from the early morning hours until noon, and a Portuguese restaurant during the afternoon and the evening.
Project:
Showroom for Auster in Dubai
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
Located in the Dubai Industrial Zone, this fashion brand needed a storage warehouse combined with a display showroom. The design attempts to merge these two different programs by developing a tectonic of blending, resulting on curvilinear boundaries. The project stayed on a fairly conceptual basis as the client was not clear on the logistics of these dual programs in the Dubai Industrial zone. The project attempts to blend the simple orthogonal cube of the industrial requirements with a more complex and expressive geometry, representing the fashion shows which would occasionally take place in the front part of the projected building.
Project:
Kabul
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
After 30 years of war, initiated by a Russian invasion continued into a lasting civil war, followed by an American invasion, Kabul was finally going through a reconstruction phase in 2004. The large site located at the base of a fancy neighborhood was to be developed as a mixed use of commercial and residential spaces. The split-level entry, allowing a maximization of the commercial space on the street level, offered an interesting set of stairs anchoring the building into the site. A generously glazed ground floor offered some transparency for the lobby as well as the upper levels shops, while being recessed to provide some shade and some open space around the upper terrace. The upper levels featured generous balconies, which operated as shading devices for the mostly glazed recessed façade.
Project:
TechnoPark Headquarter – Dubai World
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
The expansion of the natural coastline has simultaneously produced new surfaces for viable real-estate ventures that are marketed by position in this artificial fractal; and served to export the vision of Dubai abroad: mega-projects that capture the imagination and promise unparalleled experiences.
The Menger-Sierpinski Sponge is an example of a fractal that approaches infinite surface and zero volume. As the static volume is eroded, voids are created; defined by a set of new surfaces. In this model, every surface is activated and contains information. This information can be read either on the surfaces, through the surfaces or between the user and the surfaces (anti-void inhabitable spaces).
When Applied to a building, the Sponge operates by taking the traditional volumetric enclosure and reducing its capacity.
This has the benefit of increasing surfaces.
These surfaces distinguish between disparate information types: bio-fuel and solar power for example; or between employees and public observers; etc.
In a traditional space for receiving information from a point source (a book, a TV or movie screen, a computer terminal, etc.) the user's position has no great importance; whereas in a fragmented fractal space, the user must recompose the information for himself. In a fractal space of endless surfaces proliferating unique yet related data streams, the user becomes integral to both the reception and production of information.
Just as Dubai's coastal expansion has generated a marketable reality and produced an exportable virtuality for Dubai, the Landmark Tower will develop new realities between disparate, yet parallel sets of information surrounding renewable energy technologies and project the virtual image of that innovation and collaboration beyond the TechnoPark.
