In the Balance

“Every bit of this apartment is in a different part than it was before,” says Sarah Zames, co-founder of Brooklyn multidisciplinary practice General Assembly. She’s talking about the three-bedroom Upper West Side apartment that she and co-founder Colin Stief have reconfigured to suit the young family who live here.

Housed in a building originally designed by Gaetano Ajello a century ago, the architecture may have had an esteemed heritage, but the apartment itself was less appealing when General Assembly took on the project. From an initial jumble of rooms, it’s now been rationalised into living quarters on the side that prioritises daylight and river views; and bedrooms on the quieter (but naturally darker) side. “We also opened up views through the apartment, so you can see from one side all the way to the other,” says Zames.

The impenetrable solidity of the building, with its heavy concrete construction, was both a challenge – a shallow dropped ceiling has been added to run the electrics through, for example, as the fabric can’t be chased into – and an inspiration for the interiors. “We really leaned into what a pre-war is,” says Zames. “When they were built, they had a lot of plaster detailing, marble and a kind of formal, solid look with lots of heavy materials. We really took a lot of that into the design.”

Accordingly, there is a feeling of monumentality that comes from General Assembly’s use of slabbed marble and stone, from the opulent and decorative (the boldly scaled swirls of Corchia Copacabana marble in the master bathroom) to the subtle (the almost translucent nude/grey tones of the quartzite kitchen worktops, which have been crisply cut to form the sink and upstand).

Since the family loves to entertain, there is an accomplished sense of flow between the principal living areas, with the kitchen adjacent to the main living space with its curvy, conversation-piece sofa (Fao, by Christophe Delcourt for Collection Particulière); and a formal dining room/bar with a round dining table off the living space.

“Throughout the project, we were also trying to build that New York sense of place,” says Colin Stief. “So the dining table is from Egg Collective, and the light fixture above is from Lindsey Adelman.” However, more private, smaller everyday moments have also been considered: the kitchen and living space can be partitioned off with timber and reeded glass sliding doors, and there is a semi-circular breakfast bar in the kitchen for less formal occasions. There’s also a separate den for hunkering down in, with Hay’s modular Quilton chaise and ottoman.

Throughout, there’s a pleasing counterpoint between the heavy, solid materials and right angles that echo the wider architecture; and the softness and curves that characterise much of the loose furniture and textiles, from the sheer curtains to the kidney-shaped timber Hewn coffee table, designed by General Assembly and put into wider production as a result of this project (it has a little tessellating sidekick, the Lith travertine table, that’s also available).

In the bedroom, it feels like the balance tips much more towards the soft side. With a deep-pile alpaca rug from Radnor underfoot, the custom-designed platform bed is upholstered in a caramel-coloured fabric, with a long upholstered headboard in a darker tone. “The idea with this room was to make it feel a little separate from the rest of the space, which is very light and open, and make this feel almost confined, like it’s its own private sanctuary,” says Stief. The en suite is similarly sanctuary-like, with the dramatic aforementioned marble paired with Waterworks brassware and Apparatus’ elegant porcelain and brass Trapeze 2 wall lights.

Zames and Stief say that their studio’s strongest suit is its ability to consider a project from start to finish in a holistic way, and as well as taking care of the bigger picture by making the layout work for family life, there are some delightful details. A grid of Atelier de Troupe’s Perle lights dot the living area ceiling, delineating the space and bouncing light across the polished plaster ceiling; the kitchen pull-handles are tactile long oak poles that chime in with the oak flooring, cabinetry and other joinery; and in the corridor, the 90-degree turn is softened by a curved edge and open shelving that alternates as deep storage drawers.

Of the whole project, Stief says that it is “very calming. You’re multiple floors up in Manhattan but it’s very grounded. You feel like you’re in this warm, comfortable living environment.”