Design Brooklyn by By Anne Hellman (Author), Michel Arnaud (Photographer)

INNOVATION

DUMBO 161

Vintage Meets Nouvel Jane’s Carousel

A BOV E Wa l en t a s was ad vi s e d by diff eren t res to re r s t o “ dip an d s tr i p ” the h or s es u s in g a toxi c c h em ic al ba t h to re m ove t h e laye r s of p a i n t dow n t o t h e ba re wo od. T h ey s u gge s te d re pain t i n g w i t h ca r e n a mels , w h ic h la s t l o ng e r bu t l eave th e ho r s es lo o k i n g like s p ra y- p a i n t ed vers i o ns o f th em s e lves . “ I th o u g h t ou r c arou s e l wa s to o i mpo r t an t a n d el e g a nt for t h i s k in d o f tre a tm e n t ,” s h e s t a t es .

The c o nte m p o r ar y Fre nc h a rch it ec t J ean N o uve l a n d A t e lie r s Jea n N o u ve l de s ign e d a s eve n ty - t wo- fo o t s q u a re ye a r- rou n d en cl o s ure o f s t ee l an d

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The idea to place a classic carousel on the banks of the East River in Dumbo was born in the 1980s, when developer David Walentas was asked by the city to plan a state-owned waterfront park. Architect Ben Thompson introduced the carousel concept, but it would take many years and a number of iterations for the park, now called Brooklyn Bridge Park, to come to life. When Jane’s Carousel opened in 2011, a 1922 work of restoration had found a new home—inside a stunning modern structure designed by the internationally renowned architect Jean Nouvel.

“Designing a building in one of the most beautiful sites in the city—between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, facing Manhattan—was a challenge in itself,” states Ateliers Jean Nouvel. “At the same time, Jane’s Carousel is one of the loveliest historic carousels in America. Our architecture had to protect it while revealing and enhancing it.”

The contrast of the two structures, one inside the other, serves to accentuate the individual, distinctive beauties of each. The carousel, built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922, was in rare good condition when David’s wife, Jane Walentas, found it in Idora Park in Youngstown, Ohio. But it had sixty years of park paint on it and needed to be restored.

Walentas, an artist trained in graphic design and printmaking, used X-acto blades, preserving the original paint layer with a shellac barrier, and then made plans to repaint it with as close to the original colors as possible. The process required more than twenty years of research, scraping, and careful documentation with drawings, photos, and precise color matches.

From the beginning, Jane Walentas wanted a modern design for the shelter that would house the carousel. She says, “The site called for a sophisticated structure rather than a stereotypical reproduction. It was important for the carousel to be taken out of the realm of an ordinary amusement park ride.”

David Walentas had brought Jean Nouvel on board during a second planning phase for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

What Ateliers Jean Nouvel proposed was at first quite radical: a transparent acrylic cube rather than the cylindrical shape one might immediately imagine. As its purpose was to be a protective shelter and not to overshadow the carousel, the architects related the structure to the architecture of warehouses and industrial buildings so prevalent in Brooklyn.

An ode to Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront, the building Ateliers Jean Nouvel innovated evokes the right metaphor for both the carousel and the site itself—a jewel held delicately in its elegant box—a meeting point of the old and the new.

D Ur Mo Bb Oe r t a ’ s

c o u n t e r c u lt u r e INNOVATION

INNOVATION

BUSHWICK 167

Truly Ad Hoc

A BOV E A c o n c ret e wall ac ts l i ke wallpa p e r in th e exte n s i on .

BEL OW Ro be r t a’s m a i n d i ni n g roo m was cre a te d w i t h w h a t eve r e l e me n t s were on ha nd : d o o r s fo r t h e fa m i l y- s ty le t a ble to p s ; m i s ma t ch e d ligh t fix tu re s ; cin de r blo ck wa l l s g i ve n a c o a t of p a i n t; an d a piz z a ove n i n s ta lle d by c u t tin g a ho le in t h e roo f.

OPPOS IT E Pa r ac h in i, H oy, a n d M i r a rc h i h ad th i s p i z z a ove n s h ippe d

R o b e rta’ s

At Roberta’s in Bushwick, what began as an emptied-out garage has become a restaurant with aesthetic integrity because it was created ad hoc. Owners Chris Parachini and Brendan Hoy and chef Carlo Mirarchi started out simply, with a pizza oven shipped all the way from the Piedmont region of Italy. They installed the oven in the front of the building and fashioned a chimney to fit. Inside the cinderblock walls of the main dining space, they served pizzas, salads, and cured meats on family-style tabletops made out of salvaged doors, to which their in-house builder added custom-built legs and benches.

Outside, open to the elements, two shipping containers that had been joined at an el were insulated to house the recording studio for Heritage Foods Network, the online radio arm of Heritage Foods USA, established by Patrick Martins.

The owners wanted to install a larger garden and greenhouse on the roofs of the shipping containers. One night, California restaurateur and chef Alice Waters dined at the restaurant and enjoyed it so much she pitched in so the dream could be realized. Now there are two rooftop gardens: a hothouse for growing new plantings and an open-air garden where vegetables, tomatoes, herbs, and flowers are grown to completion.

The area formed by the two shipping containers is now joined to the main building, creating an indoor-outdoor dining room in the middle. Behind it all, beyond a wooden fence that is open only to staff and for special events, a large courtyard opens up where the owners have constructed an outdoor pizza oven, bread oven, wood storage, and potting shed to support the many activities the group spearheads, from pizza and bread making classes to weddings.

One of the many elements that convey the hands-on, doit-yourself manner in which Roberta’s came into being is a blackboard sign hung outside in the back bar area. Guests contribute chalked messages about their experience at the restaurant. In terms of what a dining establishment decides to hang on its walls, this is about as organic as it gets.

fro m the P ie dm o n t reg i o n o f I t a ly.

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INNOVATION

BUSHWICK

INNOVATION

boerum hill 201

Infinite Glamour Flavor Paper Residence

Jon Sherman, founder of the wallpaper and textiles company Flavor Paper, has a lifelong love of infinity mirrors. The façade of his Boerum Hill headquarters hints at this, because, if you happen upon it at night, the partially exposed stairwell glows pink and purple, the result of decorative neon tubes lighting a 65-foot-high periscope. Sherman created the design for the building—which houses both the wallpaper printing operation as well as his residence—with his friend Jeff Kovel, of Skylab Architecture in Portland, Oregon. Housing both a thriving business and its owner’s sense of play and creativity, the design reflects years of hard work as well as fun.

Adapted from a parking garage, the structure’s shell was preserved—and painted black—whereas Kovel opened up the dilapidated interiors and transformed them into a ground-floor printing factory, a sleek showroom and office level, a third floor with two employee apartments, and a penthouse residence for Sherman. In Sherman’s apartment, not a single surface has been left undone: the ceilings of the kitchen and dining rooms, which one first encounters, have been shaped into mock-croccoated arches. The effect is softening and intimate, while the purpose of the arches was also functional (they mask the ductwork without having to drop the entire ceiling in a uniform way and add considerable sound advantages). The outcome gives the sensation of walking into a confined space only to take a few steps and enter a wide-open expanse of living room.

The reason for this expansiveness is the far wall, which is made entirely of glass and slides open. Separated only by a glass French balcony from the outside world, the opening provides an exhilarating juxtaposition to the plushly carpeted interior. Sherman loves surprises, and there are other more subtly placed surprises throughout that have a lot to do with mirrors. Mirrored walls in the kitchen and living room also create a sense of infinite space.

To say Sherman’s residence is an ode to texture is perhaps an understatement. Not a single element reveals drywall. Upstairs, Sherman kept most of the roof deck a grassy, wildflower-filled meadow. Looking over the railing on the south end of the building, the same side that in Sherman’s apartment completely opens to the elements, one looks over the quiet, lush backyards of neighboring townhouses. It’s a view that reminds Sherman of New Orleans, where he lived for many years: the surprise of a garden one finds in the city, when all you are used to seeing is the street.

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INNOVATION

boerum hill

INNOVATION

Prospect Heights

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The l i v i ng roof o f t h e Vi s i t o r C e n t e r i s p l a nted wi th 40, 000 d i ve r s e p l a nts chosen t o exp a n d t h e t y p e s of sp eci es g row n o n g re e n ro o f s .

S p eci a l i zed p l a n t i n g s c a p t u re a nd d i rect r a i n wa t e r t o re d u c e the l oa d on the c i t y ’s s t o r m wa t e r ma na g ement s y s t e m a n d t o sup p l ement i r r i g a t i o n .

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INNOVATION

Prospect Heights

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Ba P ur sk hw Si lc ok pe 33

Pa i nti n g t h e c a r ve d - wo o d fi rep l a c e s u r ro u n d w h i t e b r i n g s the Vi c t o r i a n d e t a i l s i n t o t h e twenty - fi r s t c e n t u r y. “ I l ove t h e or na te n e s s a n d fl owe r i n e s s of a d e s i g n c o m b i n e d w i t h a more s u b d u e d p a l e t t e ,” Gro p p For b es exp l a i n s . “ I t ’s a b i g theme i n t h e h o u s e ove r a l l .”

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c o u n t e r c u lt u r e renovation

renovation

cobble hill 93

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c o u n t e r c u lt u r e renovation

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renovation

clinton hill