Brooklyn, New York, USA

Manhattan-based design practice Jaklitsch Gardner Architects redesign a 3,000-square-foot penthouse residence and create a transformable home with flexible entertaining possibilities and breathtaking views respecting the 1920s architectural character of the historic Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.

One Hanson Place has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The architects wanted to capitalize upon the unique attributes inherent in the location at the top of the building and instill the interior with a strong sense of character.

While not copying the past, they chose to learn from the 1920’s architecture of the building while designing a contemporary residence suitable to the living requirements of a particular client.

To reorganize the layout, the entrance was relocated to face the living area, creating a new vestibule and enhancing the sense of arrival.

Two bedrooms were converted into a combined primary bedroom and sitting area separated by three curved, telescoping wood panels, whose multiple arrangements enable both connection and privacy.

While the ebony-stained white oak flooring creates continuity throughout the apartment, the hallway affects a change in mood from the compression of the private spaces to the more expansive perception of the living area.

The shift in color and lighting from the central corridor to the lighter spaces at either end enhances the differentiation.

The interior was conceived as a fluid landscape in which the custom-designed furniture and finishes are metaphors for natural elements.

There is an interplay between the mobile, organic elements and the fixed, rectilinear architectural framework: a “fountain” coat rack, composed of looping arcs of brass; a cumulus chandelier with spheres of cast glass; and a record cabinet faced with incised white flowers.

When the sections of the bespoke tripartite table—configurable in multiple arrangements for flexibility of seating and use—are joined, the composition becomes reminiscent of the stump of a great old tree.

Two themes—celestial and landscape—are symbolic of the apartment’s physical place between ground and sky.

Taken together with the finely-tuned millwork throughout the apartment, the materiality and detailing of all the movable elements provide a sense of tactility, psychological warmth, and human scale.

Project: One Hanson Place
Architects: Jaklitsch Gardner Architects PC.
General Contractor: BNY Construction, Inc.
Client: Private
Photographers: Mikiko Kikuyama and Brian Park