Hallway & Stair Redesign

Manhattan, New York
1200 sq.ft. combined space
Concept Design
Renderings by 08 Studio

The clients for this project had a unique situation - they owned an apartment on the top floor of an apartment building, as well as a large private roof deck that could only be accessed via the public hallway and one flight up the fire stair of the building. Their two individual spaces were beautifully decorated by the client in a cozy and light Scandinavian aesthetic, but the experience of passing through the hallway and stair was always dismal in comparison. Therefore we were asked to redesign these connecting spaces to make the experience of moving to and from the roof feel like a true extension their two spaces. The concept would then be proposed to the building for approval.

Our design takes inspiration from the material palette of the owners’ apartment, bringing light wood tones throughout. Since these are technically shared spaces within the apartment building, the design strives for maximum impact with minimum construction intervention. For example, a floating wood ceiling will be suspended from the existing structure above, instead of building a whole new ceiling to hide the existing exposed pipes. The same wood is used as a wainscot and a slatted version of it features at the ends of the hallway and the elevator landing to highlight these areas. Functional lighting is integrated into the new floating ceiling, and accent lights come in the form of round pendants to create an organic touch.

The stairwell walls will be resurfaced with venetian plaster, and the existing railings will be swapped out for a railing with sleeker thin profiles. The railing is oriented at an angle as a further play on the diagonal theme of the hallway ceiling, and to create visual movement to enhance the experience of walking up and down the skylit space.