po@po&co

Gilsey House: Keeping it Cool

2012-01-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Probably the biggest design challenge at the Gilsey House project has been the best way to heat and cool the apartment. This is not unusual: unlike the rest of the country, even luxury properties in New York rarely employ the simple forced-air heating and cooling systems that are the industry standard elsewhere. Just think about that huge condenser humming outside of every three-bedroom house in the suburbs, then imagine multiplying that times the dozens to hundreds of units in the typical mid-rise Manhattan apartment building and you'll understand why.

The ideal situation for this project would be to have some sort of central air-conditioning system that is zoned and easily controlled, resulting in a consistent temperature throughout the apartment. Such systems exist, but require both physical space in side the unit (at a premium here) and a significant amount of access to the exterior for the exhausting of heat. At Gilsey House, we neither have access to the roof for condenser units, nor think eliminating half of a precious window to accommodate the necessary large louvers would be appealing to the client.

Another solution is to install three HVAC units through the masonry exterior walls under windows along the east side of the apartment. These would cool each bedroom individually and the Living Room/Kitchen area, with the Gallery and Study relying on overflow from the three units. This would also allow us to avoid tampering with the historic cast-iron facade on 29th Street, which would be a non-starter with the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Getting the cut-outs for even these units will require permission from Landmarks, but it is permission that is more commonly granted, especially since we are disturbing a plain brick wall that is not part of the ornate facades for which the building is famous.

Finally, we will be rehabilitating the existing steam heat system (radiators) because this is heat that the owners are already paying for through their maintenance charges. Even in its dilapidated state, with drafts at every window and holes in the floor and walls, the radiators keep the apartment toasty on the coldest day.

Gilsey House: The Bid Process

2012-01-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

One of the best lessons I learned from the ten years I spent designing buildings for public and institutional clients was using the competitive bidding process to the owner's best advantage. When you're working for a governmental client, finance laws often require a specified level of competitive bidding be applied to projects, both to protect against corruption and to help ensure that the taxpayers' money is spent wisely.

In that spirit, we solicited five bids (instead of the usual three) for the project at Gilsey House. The scope of work (replacing everything on the property, from floors to ceilings, windows to walls) suggested that contractor's bids had better be thorough and the client's decision needed to be carefully considered. With five bidders, we were able to immediately eliminate the highest and lowest bids, while still leaving three bids occupying the middle range to compare in more depth.

Of course, eliminating the highest bid is easy for the client; convincing them to also axe the lowest takes quite a bit of explaining. When we look at the three middle bids, all of which hover around the same median price, we get a pretty good glimpse at the actual, final cost of the project. Thus, even if that tantalizing low bid were accepted, I would prepare the client for an eventual construction cost that was more in line with that average of the middle three.

We also take great care to analyze the low bid to try and understand WHY the number came out low. After all, all of the contractors are local, drawing from the same labor pool and buying from much the same material suppliers. Deviations in subcontractor costs are to be expected, but within a reasonable range. In the case of the lowest-priced contractor on the Gilsey House project, careful parsing of the submitted documents revealed that the bid actually did not include many items that had been specified in the Contract Documents. Once we added the missing elements back into that bid, it started to look considerably less attractive. We also couldn't help but note that the omission of critical items from the bid did not bode well for that contractor's attention to the level detail that the project would require.

So with the three remaining bids, we coordinated with each contractor to hone their numbers down to work toward the client's budget, balancing internal cost savings with necessary scope reduction. This process is critical, obviously, for the project to stay on budget. But perhaps more important, it is a great way to get an idea of how each contractor will be to work with - how willing they are to sit at the table for as long as it takes to make the project work. We never want contractors to make promises that they cannot keep; the worst contractor is the one that's losing money on your job. Still, we want a partner that will work as hard as we do to make our clients happy.

Ultimately, we had three great bids to work with, that represented each contractor's best effort to meet as much of our client's needs as was possible. After that, the decision is both easier (they're all qualified and willing) and harder (they're all qualified, and willing!)

Gilsey House: Window Details I

2011-12-05T14:03:00.001-08:00

The 29th Street windows are actually small dormers in the Mansard roof, thus they are narrower and higher off of the floor than we might have liked. For the renovation, we have been designed the window surrounds to help them feel as expansive as possible.

Plan view of the 29th Street windows
(the side walls are angled out to help widen the proportion of the window - this is called an embrasure)

The paneling pattern below the window is based on the two remaining panels we found from the 1860's building.

A section through a 29th Street window, showing the paneled embrasure

We carefully measured the remaining 1860's window trim to create the new window and door surround details.

Gilsey House: Public Rooms

2011-12-05T09:19:00.001-08:00

Here's a look at some of what we have planned for the interior...

First, the public rooms:

THE GALLERY

East side of the Gallery

The Gallery's west side
(with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the former freight elevator alcove)

THE LIVING ROOM

The south side of the Living Room

Door to the Study on the west side of the Living Room

The north side of the Living Room (facing 29th Street)

The east side of the Living Room

THE KITCHEN

The north elevation of the kitchen

The south elevation of the Kitchen
(which opens to the Living Room)

Gilsey House: History Lesson #1

2011-11-29T14:48:00.001-08:00

A description from the building's website gilseyhouse.com:

Gilsey House was designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch for Peter Gilsey, a Danish immigrant merchant and city alderman who leased the plot – which included the grounds of the St. George Cricket Club – from Caspar Samlar for $10,000 a year. It was constructed from 1869 to 1871 at the cost of $350,000, opening as the Gilsey House Hotel in 1872. The cast-iron for the facade of the Second Empire style building was fabricated by Daniel D. Badger, a significant and influential advocate for cast-iron architecture at the time; the extent to which Badger contributed to the design of the facade is unknown.

The hotel was luxurious – the rooms featured rosewood and walnut finishing, marble fireplace mantles, bronze chandeliers and tapestries – and offered services to its guests such as telephones, the first hotel in New York to do so. It was a favorite of Diamond Jim Brady and Oscar Wilde, Samuel Clemens was a guest, and it attracted the theatrical trade at a time when the area – which became known as the "Tenderloin" – was becoming the primary entertainment and amusement district for New York's growing population, with numerous theaters, gambling clubs and brothels.

Gilsey House closed in 1911 after legal conflict beginning in 1904 between the operator of the hotel, Seaboard Hotel Company, and the Gilsey estate over the terms of the lease. Parts of the facade, such as cast-iron columns, which went over the property line were removed, and the building deteriorated, with rust, water damage and sagging floors. In 1925, plans were filed to rebuild the structure as an ordinary loft building of brick and stone, but were never carried out, although the ground-level storefronts were modernized in 1946. The building's future was decided when it was purchased in 1980 by Richard Berry and F. Anthony Zunino and converted into co-operative apartments after a cosmetic cleanup of the exterior, which won a commendation from the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture. The facade was finally almost fully restored in 1992 by Building Conservation Associates.

The building, with its "extraordinary" three-story mansard roof and its "vigor that only the waning years of the 19th century could muster" was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1979.

Some images from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery:

Note: the corner block of the building was changed substantially after conversion to commercial lofts in the 1930's

It is amazing how much the original window configuration suggested more verticality. The 29th Street wing (where our project is located) retains the original window pattern.

Gilsey House: Preliminary Design

2011-11-29T14:24:00.001-08:00

Before they found this apartment, we had spent over a year with our clients looking at other spaces. We would draw a few quick floor plan sketch options for each to make sure they would yield a home that could meet their needs - both practical and aesthetic.

Here is the Floor Plan from the Corcoran listing...

Here is our initial pass at a floor plan (after rotating it so that north is up).
We always show furniture in initial sketches, to make sure we have a grasp of each room's scale.

After more careful measurements, we drew the floor plan in AutoCad, adding detail.

Gilsey House: Hints of the Building's Past(s)

2011-11-29T12:52:00.001-08:00

At first glance, the inside of Gilsey House offers little to the visitor curious about its history. But look closely and bits of the distant and recent past begin to come into focus...

We were wondering about the masonry bump in the west wall of the Living Room...

Could it have been a fireplace in an 1869 hotel room?

The blocked up opening led into the freight elevator
(added when the building was converted to commercial lofts in the 1930's)

These original accordion shutters are in the Master Bedroom.
They don't open (yet) but I suspect the hidden panels are louvered.

There is something sad about this very 80's sconce with its wan green light in the bedroom.

Looks like this was a fire pull of some sort? Mounted on the back of the electrical panel.

This is a somewhat mysterious piece of (audio?) equipment.

The bronze medallion from City College was used as a pull on one of the industrial light fixtures.

The verso tells more of the story...

Everything about this is classic late 70's/early 80's

Gilsey House: Adventures in Existing Conditions

2011-11-29T12:37:00.001-08:00

As soon as the owners closed on the property, we set about poking and prodding inside the walls of the apartment, looking for pipe chases and other possible impediments as well as hidden opportunities, such as additional ceiling height.

This can be messy...

Pulling back the 1930's tin ceiling revealed the original plaster and lath.

I pulled down the paneling at one of the windows and was covered in black soot

The soot is likely from loose joints in the boiler chimney in the bump-out in the corner of the Living Room

The few extant baseboards are likely original to the building...

You can see that they're made of multiple pieces of milled stock and molding profiles

The wood strip flooring was laid on top of an older floor and a subfloor
(with empty space between the joists to the ceiling beneath)

Gilsey House: New Project

2011-11-29T08:18:00.001-08:00

We've just begun a new project at Gilsey House, the spectacular pile that dominates the corner of Broadway and West 29th Street (across the street from the Ace Hotel, and conveniently, our office). Gilsey House was built as a hotel in 1869, converted to commercial lofts in the 1930's and finally to a residential co-op in the late 1970's.

We're working on the sixth floor, turning a *very* rough space into a home for a family of four. The space has four windows facing 29th Street, and four more along the lot line to the east. Besides an abundance of light, the ceilings are nice and high at about 11 feet. Otherwise it's a mess - just the kind of challenge we love to take on!

Gilsey House from our office window

The project is located on the 6th floor on the 29th Street side

Living Room, the three windows on the right face 29th Street.

Living Room to the Kitchen, showing east windows

From the Kitchen to the Living Room

From the Living Room, looking west

Compare this little room's plain window to its exterior manifestation...

That's the same window on the exterior

This is the Master Bedroom, where the window surround remains from 1869

What have we learned?

2011-11-29T08:07:00.001-08:00

One is a pretty brutal bit of public housing, the other is Mercedes House, a luxury rental apartment building by Enrique Norten. Neither looks like a particularly pleasant place to live...

2011-09-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall glass seems like such a good idea, until you actually try to place your furniture, or hang your art...

2011-08-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

While I like a green roof as much as the next guy, I have to wonder if it says something about contemporary architecture that we're trying so desperately to bury it in the ground...

(The Marcel Sembat High School via Architizer)

Theory

2010-08-25T07:20:00.001-07:00

Theory should never be more than a means to an end...

Job Talks for Architects

2010-07-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Perhaps architects and planners should have "job talks," where we present papers to each other, in the spirit of how the Academy hires a new faculty member. They could be organized by groups with appropriate affinities (such as "campus planners" or "commercial interior designers") but representing varying opinions.

In some ways it would resemble the juries of our architectural education, but be more about ideas than specific designs. We would learn learn how to better communicate our worldview, and hopefully learn from each other's work.

Why the Center for Architecture should not emulate a Community Board

2010-07-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

One more thing about last night's program at the Center for Architecture... while I understand the reasons behind inviting the "community" into discussions of public space, not every forum is the appropriate venue for a "town hall" format. An event at the AIA New York Chapter's HQ, a facility whose physical plant and programs are paid for by our (very steep) dues, should be for the primary benefit of architects. It's nearly impossible to talk about limiting the involvement of the general public without sounding hopelessly elitist, but there is a need for professionals to have conversations with other professionals on topics on which those professionals are knowledgeable.

Last night, nearly all of the questions posed to the presenters were about overly specific concerns, often unrelated to the topic at hand ("the sign at my bus stop is in the wrong place," etc.) So really, we have the commissioner of the Department of Transportation of the largest city in the US, the directors of the Times Square Alliance and the Alliance for Downtown New York, and dozens of (presumably talented, or at least engaged) architects in one place, where vital and potentially transformative discussion COULD have taken place, and the Q&A was given over to the picayune grumblings of lay citizens.

Yes, those grumblings deserve to be heard, but that Center for Architecture program is most certainly NOT the appropriate forum for such questions/comments. IT was not fair to the audience, not fair to the speakers, and also not fair to the questioners, who would have likely gotten a better response by logging their complaints with 311.

Sadik-Khan on Politics and Public Space

2010-07-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

I heard Janette Sadik-Khan speak on the NYC Department of Transportation's transformative initiatives at the Center for Architecture last night. I'll admit some pretty heavy skepticism about her going in, but by the time I left I was convinced that she is a new model of leader, one from which I had much to learn.

While I still have beefs about some of the project designs that have come out of her agency, the very existence of those projects is, in New York City, somewhat of a miracle. The real creativity on view here was the use of operating and maintenance funds to create experimental case-studies, whose very temporality allows "cover" to the agency and politicians (to borrow a phrase from Tim Tomkins of the Times Square Alliance, another speaker) which allows the notoriously contentious New York public to withhold judgement until the project is experienced, which forces the conversation from "should we do this" to "HOW should we do this..." which is a critical distinction.

I was also struck by how effortlessly collaborative she was, in the sense that she actually listened to the somewhat insane questions by the audience, managed to craft a constructive response to each on the spot, and then offered, and offered believably, that questions like that were helpful.

She also stood up to some cyclists that were clearly baiting her on safety and pedestrian/automobile/bicycle conflicts by both admitting that it was an ongoing process of education and learning, but also reminding the questioner of HIS responsibility as a cyclist and a citizen to make it all work...

I have some real concerns about the Broadway corridor project outside of our office, and wondered if I could actually be heard. From what I saw last night, it actually seems like she'll listen.

2010-07-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

It really is depressing to see how foolish building owners and their architects can be with tectonics... I mean, really.

Modernity v. Modernism II: Materials

2010-06-30T06:51:00.001-07:00

The "future" that architects dream up always seems to be made of some colorbody (white, always white) composite material... there are no scratches revealing that the white gloss is merely a paint finish. Until we invent such a material (and put it to practical, economical use), such "futuristic" design (Zaha in Cincinnati comes to mind) will always ring hollow (literally) as merely stagecraft.

Truffles Tribeca in the New York Times

2010-06-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Povero&Company's work at Truffles Tribeca (with David Cafiero) is a subject of an article in "The Appraisal" in the Times. Basically our work designing the Lobby, Club and Roof Terrace keeps the tenants coming - and staying.

Have a look!

Docomomo

2010-06-29T13:11:00.002-07:00

A question for DOCOMOMO (documentation and conservation of the modern movement):

Since it's de rigeur in preservation circles that additions to historic buildings should be modern so that "we can tell what's old and what's new," should additions to mid-century modern buildings thus be, say, Georgian Revival?

Dogma

2010-06-29T13:11:00.001-07:00

Design is hard enough, without adding the arbitrary restrictions of stylistic dogma.

Conflict

2010-06-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Design that merely expresses conflict without attempting resolution isn't helpful and is fundamentally narcissistic.

Hippocratic Oath for Architects

2010-06-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

We should have a Hippocratic oath for architects - and it's the same as for physicians... Do no harm. At the VERY least, any new work that we add to an environment shouldn't cause a decline in local conditions.

The Avant Garde

2010-06-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Challenging the status quo hasn't shocked anyone for at least 30 years. Architecture has got to be more than that.

Modernity v. Modernism I: Style

2010-06-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

There exists a chasm between what we thought the future would be like and the reality of our present. In design, perhaps the greatest miscalculation by Modernists predictions was the tenacity of tradition. For the single-family home, even the mildly radical ranch house has fallen out of favor, replaced by various revival-ish styles.

What we've learned about modernity is that it doesn't matter what it looks like... Your iPad works just as well in a Greek Revival house as one by Rem Koolhaas.

2009-11-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about freeways...

Growing up in the twilight years of the American romance with an ever expanding interstate highway system, after acres of pristine prairie and forest had been paved and chunks of vibrant (usually African-American or immigrant) neighborhoods had been either bulldozed or severed from their surroundings by freeway construction, after the land-use patterns that resulted from that construction bred the worst kind of blight and sprawl from the edges and deep into our cities, I began to wonder what would become of these automobile environments that we had created. If the new construction of limited-access interstates and loop arterials were the first phase in the life of freeways in the United States, and the capacity saturation, gridlock and subsequent expansion of the 1970's through 1990's is the second, what is the next step, the third phase?

I live two blocks from the East River in Manhattan. The breathtaking view that I enjoy, with churning steel blue water reflecting the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Verrazano Narrows Bridges, the mighty borough of Brooklyn and the new Brooklyn Bridge Park under construction across the way, joggers and cyclists competing for space with tourists on our side the river's shores - all of this would have been unthinkable in the late 19th century. To New York in the 19th century, the East and Hudson Rivers were places of filth and vice, sylvan banks had long since given way to piers, tanneries, shipyards, counting houses and trash heaps, prostitution and gambling flourished in the neighborhoods that serviced the great seaport that had grown much of the way up both rivers. The banks of the river were unpleasant places for cultured folk. For one thing, they smelled awful and the shouts of stevedores unloading fish from the Chesapeake did not lend itself to residential accommodation. It says volumes about the way New York felt about its rivers that the city's toniest thoroughfare, the home of the monied elite and the commerce that sustained them - the famous Fifth Avenue - runs down the center of the island, as far from both rivers as was possible.

As commerce and patterns of transportation shifted (shipping across to places like Elizabeth, New Jersey, transatlantic travel replaced by jet airplane, etc. ) and the rivers began to lose their grip on the elite's imaginations as conduits foul smells and loose morals, an earlier, more romantic view of the river as something pleasurable to look at, to be near, reestablished itself in Manhattan. River House, Beekman and Sutton Places and the like sprung up as acceptable alternatives to Fifth and Park because the East River was once again seen as an asset rather than a liability, with thousands of glowing windows framing views of cruise ships, pleasure craft and ferries slicing through the currents. The land beneath them whose value had plummeted with the departure of commerce became valuable again. On the west side, the Hudson riverfront has become one of the island's premier real-estate assets, with hyper-luxurious condominium complexes and elite financial institutions vying for space along the nearly complete Hudson River Park.

Fast forward to the early 21st century and those freeways. Freeways are to us what the rivers were to 19th century New York. In fact, for many American cities that came of age in the 20th century, the freeway as a lifeline that connected it to customers and suppliers in other cities functioned in much the same way as the East and Hudson rivers. They are also universally unpleasant place to live near, because they are noisy and they smell. Sound familiar? But what if cars and trucks weren't loud and didn't emit harmful chemical clouds out of their tailpipes? Is it possible that we could repopulate the shores of our freeways, with picture windows to capture the beautiful trails of head and taillights bending toward the horizon? Anyone who has driven or nearly been run over by a Prius knows that quieter car engines are the future. If we go further and rethink the way we design cars to reduce the noise created by rubber meeting asphalt, and if we continue to raise emission standards, could we reduce the negative aspects of life along a freeway to a tipping point, converting the interstate's incessant flow of traffic into a real estate asset? How many millions of acres of fallow land could we recapture?

2009-11-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

In today's New York Times Automobile section is an article that identifies the freeway interchange as a twentieth-century work of civic art, or at least having the potential to be. This reminded me that back in high school, when the intersection of I-35W and I 20 in my hometown of Fort Worth was being rebuilt into a mesmerizing knot of flyovers, I began to think that such marvels should be treated as such, with the unused open land below repurposed for parks or trails or forests and the concrete structures beautifully lit at night. Still a good idea...

2009-11-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

It's hard NOT to be inspired to change the world when you wake up to this view every morning...

Welcome

2009-11-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome future readers, scrolling backwards...