CRStudio

The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design is a proposal for an international competition. Our proposal creates a space for the co-mingling of art and everyday practice of life, rethinking well tread Norwegian cultural touchstones (the relationship of the individual to Nature), not as cliché, but as a retooling.

Except for the corner held by the Nobel Peace Center, a void in the Oslo city fabric is created by the trace of the old railway loop coupled with the chasm of below-grade highways. The cityscape is conceived of as a positive force pushing into the building mass.

Proenza Schouler, a company that designs a high-end line of women’s apparel, was founded in 2002 by Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough. The firm’s name is derived from the designers’ mothers’ maiden names. The clothing they create is tailored, neutral and well detailed; it is inspired by such minimal artists as Donald Judd. Their new Office + Showroom is located on the top floor of a turn-of-the-century cast-iron building in SoHo.

Because of growing user demand and technological innovations in library science, trustees of the Millburn Town Library realized the need to modernize and expand their institution to create a warm, inviting facility for the 21st century. Despite financial considerations that limited the project scope to the renovation of the existing 24,000 square foot structure, CDR Studio executed a master plan through a multi-staged process. 
 

The Tea Box was a new restaurant complete with a kitchen, public bathrooms and retail space for Takashimaya, the acclaimed international department store, at their Fifth Avenue location. A 3,800 square foot space with low ceilings and no fenestration, The TeaBox was originally designated as a storage and mechanical area.

This residence on Gramercy Park North is the result of a brick-to-brick conversion of a 1920s doctor's office duplex. The ground level entrance foyer possessed a 22-foot high ceiling with a narrow footprint. The remainder of the lower and upper spaces were divided into a network of many rooms and corridors. Through the design program, the entire interior was removed to open up the interlocking levels. A ribbon of stairs, hand-blown glass light fixtures and patina steel handrails now connect the ground floor kitchen and dining areas to the living room above.

Built as a fast-track project, the 6,000 square foot showroom and main New York City office space for this women’s clothing designer includes a runway for seasonal shows, theater-quality lighting and acoustics and an easily modified array of partitions and furniture arrangements. To meet its expanding business needs and give identity to a company with the strong core values of "simplicity, creativity and delight through connection and great design," Eileen Fisher moved into this new showroom.

This 3,000 square foot apartment transforms the limitations of an early 1980s developer building: the project combines two apartments by configuring its spaces around a void. The air shaft becomes colonized as a vertical interior courtyard. Kitchen, dining, den, office and living radiate around this light shaft with new apertures creating visual links across it. The void is framed and exerts itself into the spaces surrounding it, offering both exposure and intimacy and filtering sunlight throughout the apartment.