Minimalism Among Trees and Marble | Cottage House

Located in the historic Oliver Cromwell Building, The W72nd penthouse inhabits the top three floors of the historic building in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. With commanding views of Central Park, it’s an awe-inspiring refuge from the frenetic pace of NYC. The clients, a financier and a tech entrepreneur, one from Pakistan and the other a Detroit native, longed for a cozy retreat to counterbalance their busy lifestyle. The fusion of two cultural backgrounds are apparent in the mixtures of textiles and material selections throughout the home. With two growing daughters and a steady stream of houseguests, the project aimed to accommodate their family as well as act as a secluded shelter away from city life. The space is first met with a glimpse of a stunning oak herringbone floors and steel circular staircase that connects all three floors and serves as the central backbone of the space. Facing the staircase is the main floor living and dining area perfectly framed as the home’s first introduction to the space. The area showcases an eclectic art collection and a library for the voracious literary appetite of the homeowners along with objects of curiosity from the client’s travels. Instantly eye-catching is the dining area which features a stunning dining table and leather chairs and flanked by a banquette covered with a custom Suki Cheema textile. Adjacent is a small media room punctuated by a bright red Ligne Roset couch. The tiered floor plates provided a challenge for maximizing space as each level gets increasingly smaller as you go up. The design team began to think like a shipwright to design unexpected built-ins that evoke the feeling of being in a sailboat in the sky. On the second floor, up the oak and steel staircase, is small office, a bedroom with two beds in a unique head-to-toe configuration surrounded by figured maple built-in storage looking to the prominent views of the penthouse’s towering over Manhattan. Also, on the second floor is a bathroom, a small kitchenette, and a gracious balcony that continues to overlook to the busy cityscape below. The open spaces of the circular stairwell continue up to the third-floor feature integrated fire shutters that slide down to create privacy for the whole second floor. Continuing up the stairs is a generous master bedroom and master bath. The master bathroom is class wall to wall in hand- made colored Moroccan tile juxtaposed with modern fixtures and fittings.

The privileged view of nature was the core starting point for this project on the mountainous region of Nova Lima, State of Minas Gerais/Brazil. An adventurer couple chose us to create this special project in such an exclusive area. At first, the site’s high declivity seemed to be a big challenge, but it was also what inspired us to come up with the implantation’s solution. Exploring its natural landscape and the Elephant’s Hill view, it was possible to set the social floor at the height limit, above the trees. The street facade turned out to be the side elevation and the main facade now faces towards the side boundary. Due to the high declivity of the area, we were able to create a 3 level house. On the ground floor: garage, laundry, and storage. On the first floor, the office was fully integrated with the living room and a guests’ ensuite. Finally, on the second floor, there’s the hosts’ ensuite, with the most privileged view of the landscape. A slight angulation to the east gave us the opportunity to have both the ensuite and the barbecue area to take advantage of the morning sun and the region’s predominant ventilation. At the same time, it helped to protect the ground floor from the sunset light using a concrete wall that blocks the sunlight inside the house. With the major orientation E-W, the house opens to the northern landscape. Extensive eaves on the north view’s perimeter protect the openings of the summer sun, at the same time as the glasses receive the necessary natural heat to naturally warm the inside during the winter.
We requested that two trees were precisely placed by the topographer in the middle of the elevated deck that connects the house to the suspended heated pool. These also work as a natural filter to the sun’s radiation, minimizing the sun’s entry in the living room and the kitchen. The 25m pool, a client wish, is a fundamental part of the volumetric composition of the house. Sustained by two concrete columns, they elevate the pool 6m above the natural floor level, providing to whom’s inside the pool a view of the treetops and the imponent Elephant’s Hill. With the capacity to generate about 1400kW of energy per month through photovoltaic panels, the house is self-sufficiency on energy, warming the pool water and neutralizing the energy consumption from equipment and artificial lightning.
Columns and ribbed slab represent the constructive system. The use of apparent concrete in the house’s wall, swimming pool, and slabs bring the timelessness wanted to the project.

A family needed a three-story home. The problem was that only two stories were allowed on…