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Between the eye of the photographer and the aspirations of the architects, we endeavor to bring to the surface how MPA’s values, visions, and decisions radically transformed this industrial space.
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Yet, architecture is also enmeshed in time, as its fourth dimension alongside geometrical parameters. This is where the notion of “paradoxical tectonics” materializes, as a moment in which the tactile dimension of architectural experience encounters a suspension of time, challenging established body/mind correlations to open up the possibility of imaginary resonances at the psychological level.
The irruption of a suspended temporality is presented here as an architectural attribute of the project, complementing the sensibility for longer durations embedded in Erieta Attali’s interest for archeological investigations.
The displacement and reuse of existing timber joists opens up a language of hybridization between the 1860s technology of the industrial loft and the material performance of new elements, including secondary steel members, which play as structural role, as opposed to their conventional assignment as “ornamental” or “miscellaneous” metals.
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Attali’s photo shows one instance in which the existing timber joists, are supported by a new hanging steel beam, to enable the cut out of the first floor above.
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At this threshold, before the stairs to the lower level become visible, the loft opens up, surprising the visitor with its triple-height living space, 26’ high window, the garden, and the installation of mirrors and brightly colored translucent acrylic strips on the board formed concrete foundation of the neighbor’s building beyond.
At the left of the collage, one can see the open steel frames of the steps to the mezzanine, cantilevered from the vertical steel angles along the main stair down to the main living space.
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One joist hanger, welded upside-down to a concealed steel column, (1) holds down the massive timber joist, with another “assisted” [grammar? Delete?] double joist hanger (2), supporting the joist from which the subway grating hangs (3). At the lower level, joist hangers perform a supplementary role as lighting fixtures(4)
The timber beam-railing works in concert with what are usually termed “miscellaneous metals,” which play a structural role in the architecture of the loft. These secondary structural elements include the posts of the railings at the first floor and mezzanine levels.
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The reuse and transformation of one of the timber joists as the vanity counter--with cut-outs to accommodate the two round porcelain sinks--extends structural performance to the scale of the body, as part of an inside-outside material strategy for this space, including exposed existing brick, stucco walls, and an open teak deck floor.
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The similarities and differences between this bookshelf-stair on the interior face of the mezzanine’s virtual cube, and the bookshelf-stair at the cube’s exterior, facing towards the office, qualify these elements as apparatuses, in which the relationships between parts embrace their intertwined identities, establishing tensions between horizontal and vertical vectors of movement and materiality that extend beyond their physical boundaries.
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At the center of Attali’s photo, a floating glass panel with no mullions operates as both guardrail and window towards the interior of the living space and the garden beyond, collapsing the transparent layers of the big window, the void, the railing, the walkway, and the stair.
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Attali’s photo captures resonances between the cove-lit display of white vases at the top of the north wall, the salvaged glass case embedded in the island, and the cove lighting above the cabinetry to the right, layering the reflection of the garden mirrors on the big window in the foreground of the image.
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© Marpillero Pollak Architects
Both these moments took place in the course of discovering new design opportunities within the real time set by exploring materials embedded in the existing space, and positing their possible relations with the new elements that were introduced during the process of construction.