450 Warren Street

Florian Idenburg, SO-IL Architecture, Brooklyn, NY, 2022

450 Warren attacks architectural conventions from within. Physically, the project alters the status quo by breaking the lot into three buildings, each connected via outdoor corridors. This isn’t necessarily new, but as a new building in the seasonal climate of Brooklyn it demands its residents to interact with the weather, whereas a typical apartment or condo building would fully enclose its hallways. Part of what makes this project so interesting is the way that it pushed back against the typical ratio of built-to-rentable space in its development. Because they were seeking a non-traditional typology, they could not get financing through traditional pathways. They also pushed back against the typical design that comes from Passive House standards, designing for increased ventilation rather than solely focusing on insulation. This also presented some issues when it came to financing, because the standards they were building off of did not account for this type of efficiency. The private housing market is not going away any time soon, so it is important to have precedent-setting projects like 450 Warren that designers can reference to developers as examples of the success of natural ventilation. 

Idenburg, Florian. “Recalculating Typology” in After Comfort: A User’s Guide, e-Flux Architecture, October 2023. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/after comfort/589856/recalculating-typology/