497 Greenwich Street | Wired New York

497 Greenwich Street, Google Maps
Neighborhood: SoHo
Architect: Winka Dubbeldam, Archi-Tectonics

On the Lower West Side of Manhattan, a six-story warehouse is being renovated to accompany a new glass-skin residential building of eleven stories. This new building is a state-of-the-art luxury property, distinguished by its
glass façade – a ten thousand square-foot “curtain-wall.” The once-abandoned warehouse will be reinvigorated with living spaces and the addition of an art gallery, gym and spa, screening room, wine cellar, and a duplex guest
apartment.

The integration of the existing brick building with the new steel and glass structure will create a zone of mediation between the past and the present. A small crease rising between the two structures, articulated with a set of cantilevered balconies, juxtaposes and differentiates the old and the new, inserting an interactive space
into an otherwise neutral landscape. The crease as a system of inflections blurs the distinction between the external and internal environments – marrying urban experience with domestic privacy.

In the frontier beyond Varick, where the water meets the city, sits a charismatic little neighborhood. It is upon this trapezoidal region that three of downtown’s major cultural districts converge. To the north, the West Village – home to sidewalk cafés and residential tranquility. To the east, SoHo – land of cast-iron resplendence, monument to style and commerce. To the south, TriBeCa – where finance and entrepreneurship have transformed a district of industry into a triangle of lofts.