State Street Townhouses Fairfax & Sammons Architects

State Street Townhouses

New Construction in Brooklyn, NY

This urban development project consists of seven fifteen-foot-wide, single-family townhouses in downtown Brooklyn. We were engaged in designing and detailing the facades for the row. As the developer wished for seven units and the house is only fifteen feet wide, typically only enough for two bays, to avoid the monotony of seven 2-bay houses, we decided to use a bow front on every other house, allowing these houses to be read as three bays. For parity, the remaining houses have octagonal bays on the garden fronts. The houses are further differentiated from the alternate entries from ground level to first via stoops. Two-bay alternating pattern, with orthogonal and bow-front facades, the materials are brick-on-block with cast-stone trim and a sheet-metal cornice, all representative of Brooklyn’s rich architectural heritage. Unbelievably, this project was done for under $300 per square foot with little compromise, and each unit was 3600 sq. ft. The facade is brick on block with cast brownstone trim. The cornice is sheet metal.

State Street Townhouses

Process

The major design challenge was the narrowness of the lots being just fifteen feet. This allows for 2-bay houses which are not optimal to break the monotony of the row we did; bow fronts on every other house which allowed for 3-bays. The other houses got an octagonal bay to the garden.