308-310 Canal Street, NY

This project funded by a developer required conversion of the two historical buildings located in East Tribeca landmarks district, New York, both built in 1896. New vertical communications were designed to connect the existing floors of both buildings into a coherent whole. Elements that influenced defining addition design: existing cornice heights, exist. window pattern, new elevator/stair shaft and proposed mesh envelope. Roof mesh proposed to be carbon fiber rods as shading device for the accessible roof, resting on the elevator and stair shafts. Visibility of the addition was the major factor in design decision making. The two contextual sections above show areas of addition facades visible from street level. Set back was set at 15’ on Canal Street and 10’ on Lispenard Street. The ground floor is planned as the lobby for residential floors (2nd-4th) and as a retail space. Diagrams below show some segments of zoning and building analyses for this project. Test pits and wall probes were performed in order to determine existing conditions. Original footings are stone slabs. Proposed design was compliant with zero house design, in terms of energy analysis. Unfortunately, as of now, the concept hasn’t been built yet. Other part of work was to design an addition space. The addition was initially meant to be comprised of two levels, but after consulting with LPC, we adjusted the volume to one level. 

Since the two existing buildings were built prior to 1968, we were allowed to file the permit application per 1986 code. The decision was contrived in conjunction with the discussion on the replacement of the existing wood joists. 1986 code, 28-101.4.5 limits propose renovation and enlargement up to 110% of the existing floor area, which worked beneficially in this case. In terms of materiality, new addition was proposed to be brick to match existing brick. Design intent was to build new addition that would be a continuation of existing buildings in visual sense, therefore new windows were designed to follow the existing windows pattern.