Small-Space Design Solution: A NYC Garret Apartment with a Bedroom in a Box
Photography by Chris Mottalini, courtesy of BoND. It’s easy to see why Kay Lee and Jonathan Chong fell for their West 11th Street garret apartment. Kay, a digital designer, and Jonathan who works in the restaurant business, had admired the thoughtfully succinct design work of BoND... ...the architecture and interiors firm run by Israeli ex-pats Noam Dvir and Daniel Rauchwerger—BoND stands for Bureau of Noam and Daniel—and asked if they’d shore up the apartment for full-time living. As for the trickiest riddle: thanks to their adventurous clients, they put the bed into an entirely unexpected spot. The apartment is set on the top floor of a residential building dating from 1900 and was likely originally used as living quarters. The original steel-framed, north-facing skylight was preserved, along with the exposed rafters and small window. A Le Corbusier Parliament Lamp stands next to the Floyd sectional, which can double as a guest bed. “Things can move around, nothing matches or is too precious,” notes Daniel. The living room opens to the dining area parked alongside what the architects dubbed “the bedroom in a box.” Wanting to preserve the openness of the main space—and with a mere 8-foot-wide... ...area to work in—BoND came up with this “sculpture like addition that’s a bit like a wooden Airstream trailer.” They collaborated on its design with Lesser Miracle, the Brooklyn carpentry workshop that built it. Fabricating the box off-site would have been more efficient, but because five flights of stairs were involved, all materials had to be schlepped up, and it was cut and assembled on site over the course of six weeks. A Lariat Pendant by Apparatus hangs over Kay and Jonathan’s table from their previous apartment. “Every inch of the box had to count,” says Daniel. Two holes in the ceiling also let the air out and lights on top of the box shine in: “It’s quite theatrical lit up. You’re inside a space within a space.” The interior is also finished in sapale, and opposite the bed there are two built-in closets. BoND intentionally gave each room its own guise, creating a sense of discovery within the small quarters. The kitchen—set in a “tricky small corner with a window”—is both tough and sleek: it has painted brick walls (a salute to its old NYC location), steel cabinets from Reform’s Jean Nouvel-designed Reflect line, and a deeply veined Violeta marble counter. The bath was designed to feel “clean and fresh with a collage-like use of materials,” Daniel tells us. The 2-by-2-inch Dal Tile ceramic squares are an affordable BoND favorite. The apartment is long and impossibly narrow in parts. “It was endearing in its dilapidated state, but sadly not livable,” write the architects. The names of the previous artist occupants are unknown, but their work came with the apartment. The artists used the space as their studio for decades.