Overlooking New York City’s Central Park, Residence of Sinuous Substance co-opts the organic lines of Olmstead’s pathways. These lines, guiding the foot, reveal intimate and panoramic perspectives to the eye. Encouraging wandering leisure, the plentiful beauty of the park spurs creative thought.
The apartment takes its cues from the park. Like the roaming pathways and momentary destinations of the park, a rambling occupation is suggested by the horizontal surfaces of the apartment. Table, desk, and hearth seat blur in use and distinction, accommodating informal dining in multiple locations and laptop migration from place to place. A thought-provoking environment, the space allows for shifts between directed and wandering perambulation. It engages the mind in a ceaseless search for the next endeavor.
This fertile roving is in sharp contrast to the ponderous stasis found in the typically symmetrical rooms of a traditional prewar apartment. To activate this stasis, a conceptual and physical resonance is forged with the park. Partitions are removed to join the rooms into an open living space. Clues that guide movement are inscribed in the back wall of the dwelling. The flowing line of the curved handrail guides the hand in the ascent to the dramatic horizon-line view from the terrace level. Here, the distant panorama of buildings that appear to hover over the tree line of the park is unexpectedly reiterated by the sinuous canopy floating above the penthouse addition. With this nimble gesture, the multiple existing rooflines are linked. The continuous geometry of a spiraling ruled surface twists from the ceiling plane to connect the misaligned openings of the skylight and floor. Bathed in light, the twisting surface encircles the stair. A sinuous translucent tracery of digitally milled and cast resin emerges from within the back spine of the apartment and floats upward to wrap the stair as a handrail. Understood first as shadowy presence, it is only upon entry to the stair that the structural veins of this filigree reveal themselves—classical stasis is eased so the inhabitant can wander, wrapped in a lyrical web.
