827-831 Broadway is 70,000 SF commercial building in lower Manhattan, with views over Union Square. The project involves both the restoration of the original 1860s cast iron façade and the addition of a new vertical enlargement that celebrate the significant cultural history that occurred within the building.
The existing base is a beautiful four-story cast iron Italianate building designed by the preeminent architect of the day, Griffith Thomas and it was designated an individual landmark in 2017 due in large part to the incredible cultural history that occurred within its walls which among other things, housed the longtime studio of Willem De Kooning, one of the foremost masters of Abstract Expressionism. The central theme of Abstract Expressionism involves taking every day subject matter, then abstracting, distorting and reassembling it to convey strong emotional and expressive content.
In our design of the addition we have taken these themes and expressed them through an architectural lens. An undulating organic slumped glass façade works to disassemble and distort the surrounding cityscape, landscape and sky. The façade becomes a surface that uses the kineticist of the city as its form of expression. The glass façade will also be an incredibly energy efficient and sustainable thermal envelope as it will be a two-skin system with an interstitial conditioned space in between.
