North 9th Street

Sited in a predominantly-residential corridor within Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, our new residential building’s understated front facade serves as quite the contrast to its’ dynamic, terracing rear facade. At the front facade, the uniform grid draws from the rigidity and regular patterns of the surrounding building facades. Subtle carves hidden behind the corrugated metal skin provide sheltered outdoor space along the primary street facade. At the rear facade, the staggered stepping of the building geometry is introduced at each floor, responding both to rear yard code requirements and the desire for a variety of private terraces for each of the duplex apartments.  The uniform opening sizes of the facade grid are modified in response to the stepped geometry and program/access needs, creating a dynamic and playful facade. The curved inside corners of the rear terraces softens the building geometry, connecting the rear facade into a singular undulating surface.

The corrugated metal employed at both building facades mediates between the restrained front geometry and the curvilinear rear geometry. At select locations, a perforation to the corrugated metal is introduced, providing additional transparency of the parts of the facade that double as terrace guardrails while still preserving the material language of the primary building materiality.

Renders — Kevin Pham