
completed
Lobby Jewel Box
New York City
We transformed a small, exhausted New York City lobby into a clean, elegant jewel box. This tiny lobby serves many functions: main building entrance, resident’s elevator lobby, cross-passage from the adjacent Rubin Museum of Art to their offices up the stairs, mail and package area, and an exit from the cellar.
We judiciously chose elegant lighting fixtures, a clean palette of marble, wall covering and wood veneer and reconfigured the ceiling to give a sense of order and hierarchy to a space where none existed before.
The flooring pattern and ceiling shape mimic each other and we replaced the unsightly round security mirror with a mirrored millwork panel on the jamb.
We had shown a stout 9-column radiator as inspiration and a replacement for the standard tall 2-column existing radiator, but learned through our research that although they originated in the U.S., the 9-column radiator is only available in the U.K. (and only as hot water, not the steam type that we needed). We researched options and found a similar 6-column radiator in Canada.
The warmth of the millwork at the elevator becomes the focal point down the narrow hall.