KUSHNER studios
Architecture + Design, P.C.

This project typifies a lot of the work we do and enjoy doing. First it checks the Housing box. [A passion of the principal], Then it ticks the box where you get to add onto and work with an existing building [which addresses our preservation of scant resource button] and finally we get to place it in its current context, allowing it to be both of its original moment but adapted to current social and economic needs. And so this rather normative four story romanesque building was to undergo an upgrade. We were to add two full floors and expand its footprint while demolishing an underutilized smaller building on the adjacent lot. The results were to be an expression of a modernist screen with a green roof and garden growing out of the buildings original perimeters. It was to be a metallic facade that intentionally was to be a foil for the historical portion of the building, with this methodology highlighting and calling into question each’s contemporaneous purpose and value. There were some fundamental upgrades also to be included such as elevator access and the carving out of space to create a common interior courtyard. Alas, as my language intimates and refers to, all this was nought as the project was stalled and then abandoned leaving only hopefully words and renderings that could be provocations leading other readers to new insights or inspirations moving forwards. Such is the fickle world of Architecture.