APARTMENT RENOVATION
5th AVENUE and 78th street, UPPER EAST SIDE,
NEW YORK CITY 2007
5th Avenue
Interior Renovation
A SPACE WITHIN A SPACE; A COMPRESSED INTROVERTED LANDSCAPE
This interior design renovation in 5th Avenue in the Upper East side, facing
Central Park works out several ideas about the city
and its landscape, in an interior
space. Departing from the fact that a complete interior renovation is generating a space within a container space (or a space
within a space), the project took that premise to its
furthest extent, considering that idea could also
be twisted around. Due to the proximity to the Park, the project intents to
reveal and manipulate the tension between the
claustrophobic condition of its interior and the anxiety generated by
the contrast of the openness but also contained boundaries of
Central Park, which is considered a space
inside the city due to its enclosed inland-locked
condition. The Park may also be considered a building
due to its artificiality architectural
qualities.
Therefore the apartment is split into
two parts: the private area and the public areas become redefined as an interior
and as an exterior relative
to each other.
As soon as one enters the apartment the space curves, bends and is warped
by the curves of the ceiling and walls, the
fixed furniture and the floor that motivate a reference to an
opening landscape condition by compressing the
space towards the spectator and liberating it in the opposite direction
towards the park. This compression and opposite
projected extension focusing on the Park activates
spatial forces that manipulate the space
by generating poched space within the walls, enlarging
the figures of the windows. The figural condition of
the windows then inverts also the space, since they are designed
as looking towards an exterior (the living room which is
meant to be read as an exterior
landscape). The living room then is considered
an exterior within an interior being worked out as a fluid
space. At the same time and in order to project the
space towards the park (as well as integrate the park within the living
room space), technology is implemented in such way so that a continuous
live video depiction of the park is reproduced
in a large screen in between the two windows generating a landscape
oriented continuous scenographic view. The ”interior” private part of the apartment follows progressively the motivation that the
living room develops and the
divisions between spaces are minimum in order to provide a maximum spatial
experience.
