In an 80 m2 loft in New York, patina and history give way to a new life

In an 80 m2 loft in New York, the patina of time and history give way to a new life.

Although many of the old artist residences have been devoured by new skyscrapers, pockets of nostalgia persist on the streets of New York’s NoHo neighborhood. Nine years ago, the founder of the New Operations Workshop, Gabriel Yuri, was lucky enough to find one when his real estate agent showed him a partially renovated 800-square-foot studio apartment in a 19th-century building that had been, at various times, a fur shop, an artists’ retreat and a women’s home. Even in its disorganized state — with new walls plastered over some 1830s brick and half-finished hardwood floors — Diller alumnus Scofidio + Renfro saw its potential.

“Most of what I found had been renovated without any charm,” recalls Yuri of the boring apartments that dominated the ads. “I wanted something with history and character, so it was great to find this apartment when it was still partly intact.”

Many might have been daunted by the amount of work, but Yuri rose to the challenge. He spent almost four years to eliminate traces of previous renovation works – often alone, sometimes with the help of a professional – restoring the original pine floors in the living room and highlighting the existing bricks, exposed pipes and steel beams which had been covered throughout the space. And he was still lucky afterwards: when the new neighbors discarded the original tin ceiling tiles during their renovationYuri installed them in the kitchen and in the entrance corridor: a delicate reference to the building’s past that integrates with the new industrial-style steel kitchen furniture. He also found original fretwork windows, which he used above the bedroom door to let light penetrate deeper into the apartment, and built a bench sectional sofa and daybed in the living room to hide structural changes from the building’s facade work.