9th Street loft / Messana O’Rorke
© Elizabeth Felicella
Architects: Messana O’Rorke
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Design Partners: Brian Messana and Toby O’Rorke
Design Team: Christopher Courtney
Lighting Designer: Zerolux
Mechanical Engineer: M.A. Rubiano
Photographs: Elizabeth Felicella
© Elizabeth Felicella
An unforgiving block in the Far East of the East Village provided the location for a unique living space for an alternative couple and their collection of art and contemporary furniture. The harsh streetscape of public housing and a neighboring tenement squat, melt into oblivion upon passing through two large steel doors into the new apartment, where another architecture has been established.
© Elizabeth Felicella
Needless to say the original storefront space had nothing to recommend it, with the exception of scale. The twelve-foot ceilings, steel columns and thick wooden beams, were the only features. From the outset the intension was to crate an abstract space with its own urban form; blocks of program divide the living spaces in the same way that buildings define a city. A wall of opaque plastic simulates sunshine opposite the entry hall. The kitchen is unperceived in a white lacquer and stainless steel orthogonal form. Passing through a square arch one arrives into a large open space, with a high-level slot window, which provides views of the sky to the south.
© Elizabeth Felicella
A fifty-foot linear light fixture runs the length of the space, passing from the large gallery type space through a narrow gap between enclosed spaces into another space beyond. Each area is defined by architecture, but function is abstracted, hidden and obscured. A sofa, a table, or a bed, becomes the only elements that describe the domestic function of each space.
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- fixture plan
9:00 PM Feb 7th
The Wall House / Messana O’Rorke: © Elizabeth FelicellaArchitects: Messana O’Rorke Location: New York City, New … http://bit.ly/geGPQ1
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RT @ArchDaily: The Wall House / Messana O’Rorke http://archdai.ly/i0Zxtu #architecture
9:08 PM Feb 7th
What a beautiful, calm space. RT @ArchDaily The Wall House / Messana O’Rorke http://archdai.ly/i0Zxtu #architecture
9:08 PM Feb 7th
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RT @ArchDaily: The Wall House / Messana O’Rorke http://archdai.ly/i0Zxtu #architecture
9:19 PM Feb 7th
Interesting use of a difficult urban space: http://www.archdaily.com/108772/the-wall-house-messana-ororke/
9:23 PM Feb 7th
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7:29 AM Feb 8th
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