The Suffolk is a new 30-story residential building located in the Lower East Side, or LES, of Manhattan. We sought to mirror the richness of the surroundings in our design in order to create a vibrant modern space connected to the urban environment. Given the neighborhood’s cultural and social palimpsest, we used complexity and layering as a tool to connect to our surroundings. The design palette is evocative of the neighborhood’s age, featuring rough, textured, monochromatic materials as a background for faded colors, furniture, and art to stand out. Taking elements of civic spaces in the neighborhood, specifically the Gaustivino arches, and inserting asymmetry, our lobby features the innovated classical form to produce a dynamic entry program. An interior scheme is stitched together on the 7th floor, where some furniture pieces are cutting edge, but also some are reclaimed and vintage. Contrasting forms, furniture, and art come together into a design that is deliberately, and joyfully, disjointed. The result is a unique series of spaces that are nonetheless linked to the historical continuum of the LES.
