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PROJECT REPORT: HOTELS, RESTAURANTS & BARS
“Having an engaging street presence is the essence of Radio.181” Mick van Gemert, MVRDV
dimensions, arranged side by side. “The individual buildings vary in size a little, but overall the buildings nearby are quite uniform in terms of their dimensions,” says Van Gemert. To help this large new addition fit within the area’s urban landscape, it “replicates a typical composition of a Washington Heights block, deconstructs it, and then reassembles it into a stack of boxes,” say the architects. Each of the eight different blocks within the development takes its inspiration “directly from the adjacent buildings” explains Van Gemert, so that the window lines and overall facades replicate the look of the neighbourhood. MVRDV’s original concept was to design all of the different components using the same “narrow range of dimensions” of nearby existing structures, states Bron. But because of the density required by the client, this more “horizontal” approach wasn’t feasible. “So in order to work with similar-sized blocks, we needed to stack them,” which enabled the designers to reflect the local scale while building higher to incorporate the different facilities. The staggered stacking of the different boxes – and the splitting up of the hotel and office programme into several sections within that composition – provided MVRDV with the opportunity to diversify the spaces even more, and introduce a
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greater number of roof terraces. “The expression of different functions and the stacking of indoor and outdoor spaces makes it a vertical village,” says Bron.
Facades
Not only are the different components of the building such as the hotel and office space clearly defined through its geometry, but each section – and function – has its own colour. There’s a precedent in the diversity of local architecture: “Walk the streets of Washington Heights and you sense that diversity. Radio.181’s colour scheme is just an abstraction of this experience, taken directly from the streetscape,” says Van Gemert. Bricks were the chosen material for the building’s multi-coloured exterior, to tie in with local facades. But as the team wanted the elevations to also reflect the vibrancy of the neighbourhood, they opted for glazed bricks, and this unusual specification across such a composition has “worked to quite an impressive effect,” says Bron. He adds: “Most people aren’t really used to seeing glazed bricks in large blocks of solid colour like this, so people are surprised by how colourful it is.”
The bright colours have captured people’s attention, including on social media, where one commenter criticised the building based on an image taken at a distance. They
ADF MAY 2022
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