Broome Street Development is listed as one of 10 projects that provide attractive, affordable, compact urban living in Urban Land’s recent article.
Located just South of the Essex Crossing / Seward Park Urban Renewal in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the project was developed by Gotham Organization and includes a 30-story mixed-use building, The Suffolk, and the 17-story Norfolk Building.
Designed by Dattner Architects and JG Neukomm Architecture, this 460,000 square foot mixed-use development encompasses a diverse mix of market-rate, affordable and senior housing, as well as a community facility and retail space.
The Suffolk Building includes a residential tower and a podium designed to complement the scale of a rapidly growing commercial street. It accommodates the new headquarters of the Chinese American Planning Council, offers small retail spaces, residential amenities, and also includes 33 compact “micro units” named “Abode” by Gotham. The micro units form a community centered around a shared suite of amenities for collective entertaining, working and recreation.
Breaking from a typical boxy layout, these nested studio spaces use a subtle offset in the plan to provide visual complexity, and a sense of privacy and space. The offset hides the front door from the living space, and floor to ceiling glass expands the interior outwards. A diagonal view from the main living area to the kitchen area and dining nook add a sense of spaciousness that exceeds actual dimensions of the unit.
These apartments come equipped with a cleverly designed murphy bed/storage unit that folds up and transforms into a couch and bookshelves when not in use. By increasing a building’s density with smaller yet livable spaces, micro-units may serve as one of several measures that can relieve the chronic housing shortages and high cost of living that affect so many cities.
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