Curbed Inside visits the interior of a structure with an eye towards revealing the design and architecture. Got a place for us to check out? Drop a line. This includes you, architecture firms!
Last Thursday, the architecture/development firm FLAnk—the visionaries behind such recent mindtrips as 385 West 12th Street and 441 East 57th Street, among others—moved into a brand new office building in West Chelsea, where the neighbors range from auto parts dealers to nightclubs. The day before the madness of moving, FLAnk invited us inside to take a look. The commercial condo building, at 520 West 27th Street, is co-developed by FLAnk and Peter Moore Associates.
FLAnk, founded in 2002 by Jon Kully and Mick Walsdorf, is a full-service operation (from design to construction management to marketing and sales to after-service), so the company needs its space. It certainly has it now. The 11th Floor houses the architects, while the 10th is for the development staff. Floor 3 contains a permanent sales office that FLAnk will use to market all of its properties. The sun-soaked offices have views of the High Line—and just about everything else—and there's plenty of outdoor space for employee sunbathing and bocce (coming soon!). FLAnkers also get free memberships to nearby Chelsea Piers, which explains the in-office lockers and showers. At least, we think that's what they're using them for. For all we know, FLAnk could be planning a locker-shaped boutique condo building somewhere. One upcoming FLAnk project we're sure of: the conversion of the Village Nursing Home at 607 Hudson Street.
· FLAnk [flankonline.com]
· Luxury Developments Take the Time to Celebrate Themselves [Curbed]
· The Bowery Finally Gets its Geothermal Wells [Curbed]
1) Wait, not everyone is pumped about FLAnk's 15-story glass-and-steel mindtrip rising over the rubble of Cy Coleman's townhouse on 57th Street? Writes one neighbor: "So a new era begins on my block, and once again I have a bird’s-eye view of history, one in which a 150-year-old town house is demolished so seven purchasers can spend millions and have the privilege of living in (or more likely visiting) our city." Scathing. [New York Observed/Judith Katz]
2) Vivian Toy investigates the odds of winning one of those middle-income housing lotteries and finds out what you already knew: you have as much chance at winning the right to buy a $51,000 Chelsea co-op as you do as landing a same-day reservation at Per Se. ['Winning That One in a Million'/Vivian S. Toy]
3) An architect who specializes in theaters has a go at a landmarked Harlem brownstone on West 122nd Street (on the market for $2.5 million and absolutely gorgeous) and comes away with a plan: whitewash it, glass up the rear façade and stick some wind turbines on the roof. Yeesh, must everything have floor-to-ceiling glass nowadays? [Sketch Pad/Tracie Rozhon]
4) When was the last time a Hunt subject was determined to live in Brooklyn, but ends up in Manhattan? This musician do-gooder had serious flirtations with a pair of new Williamsburg developments, Withers Place and the delayed Aqua, before discovering everyone's favorite isolated Lower East Side bargan, Co-op Village. [The Hunt/Joyce Cohen]
5) The debate over the lighting scheme on Coney Island's Parachute Jump is a metaphor for the give-and-take between art and commerce, and it is all summed up beautifully by an arcade manager who drops this gigantic pearl of wisdom: "People are going to buy the hot dogs whether the ducks are on the napkins or not." [The City/Jake Mooney]
To call HL23—a space-age condo building from a man named Alf—an "anticipated addition" to the crop of real estate development surrounding the High Line would be like calling burritos merely "yummy" or the Knicks only "disappointing." Just check out the team involved: architect Neil Denari, interior designer Thomas Juul-Hansen and façade specialists Front, last seen consulting on Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue, Asymptote's 166 Perry Street and FLAnk's 385 West 12th Street and 441 East 57th Street. Yesterday we had a look at some of the 15-story West Chelsea building's interiors, and now we've dug up some more. To keep all the craziness in one central location, we've compiled all the HL23 renderings into one glorious mindfuck of a gallery. Have a gander at our favorite new High Line building since The Standard, which was our favorite new High Line building since the High Line Building, which was our favorite new High Line building since the Caledonia, which was our favorite new High Line building since High Line 519, which was...
· HL23 [Official Site]
· HL23 Interiors Revealed; Peace on Earth At Hand [Curbed]
· High Line Makes Room for Alf [Curbed]
That patch of green in the corner? It may be small, but it's one big "in your face!" to British publishing power couple Sir Harry Evans and Tina Brown. As real estate reporter to the stars Michael Gross points out, that's the Evans-Brown garden tucked into the corner, and the building is 441 East 57th Street—the same 15-story condo building the couple sued to stop. It looks like the matter got settled, because the Sutton Place building is on the market, and after looking at the website, we've officially deemed it cool as hell. The FLAnk creation—which sort of has a New Museum thing going on—has seven condo "townhome" units priced from $2,795,000 to $7,100,000. Reid Price at Brown Harris Stevens is marketing the building.
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1) Wait, not everyone is pumped about FLAnk's 15-story 
