SKYHOUSE by David Hotson

A unique architectural vision comes to life in a turn-of-the-century New York City skyscraper, a residential penthouse by David Hotson Architect, located at the summit of one of the earliest surviving skyscrapers in New York City and situated within the incomparable vertical cityscape of Lower Manhattan.

Skyhouse is an apartment in the sky, a project, by David Hotson, involved the construction of a set of unique living spaces inside. The spaces of this residence and the vistas channeled through it ascend and descend through all four levels of the penthouse structure and into the three-dimensional cityscape surrounding it in every direction. The main living space occupies the entire north end of the penthouse.

Here the ceiling rises to the underside of the third level terrace and then tapers upward through the full fifty-foot height of the penthouse structure. At the midpoint, a reading balcony is suspended on the exposed structural girders. At the attic level the outward sloping glass wall provides a vertiginous vista down to the Living Space four levels below. Furniture, fabrics, and finishes were designed by Ghislaine Viñas of Ghislaine Viñas Interior Design.

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The private elevator landing opens into a tall vestibule, tapering upward to a seamless rectangular oculus which provides a view of the sculpted summit of the adjacent skyscraper.

The main living space occupies the entire north end of the penthouse.

The main living space. Skyhouse by David Hotson.

The entrance to a tubular slide, constructed from mirror-polished stainless steel, emerges through a circular hole cut in the seamless sloping glass partition at the south end of the Attic.

The tubular slide. Skyhouse by David Hotson.

The cylindrical helical slide flares to an ellipse which is sectioned on the angle of the inclined glass wall resulting in a circular opening where the slide emerges through the glass. This circular opening creates an illusion of flatness contradicted by the sideways path of the slide as it begins its descent.

Visitors are invited to select a yellow cashmere blanket from the pile beside the entrance to speed their trip to the bottom….

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Architects

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David Hotson_Arquitects.

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Collaborators

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Designer.- Ghislaine Viñas.

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Builder

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SilverLining Interiors.

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Video

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Producer-Director-Editor.- Jonathan Robinson.
Director of Photography.- Ben Wolf with the RED EPIC.
Original Music.- CurioSound.

David Hotson. David Hotson_Architect

David Hotson_Architect is an architectural design firm based in New York City.

Founded by David Hotson in 1991, the office works on private cultural, institutional and residential projects located anywhere in the world with current projects in New York City, the Hudson Valley, Vermont, Texas, and the Caribbean.

David Hotson received a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario Canada and Master of Architecture degree from the Yale University School of Architecture. He is a registered architect in the state of New York.The firm focusses on architectural space as the primary medium of design, shaping figural spatial volumes filled with natural light.

The office has been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Architectural Record, Interior Design, Detail, The Plan, Architectural Digest and many other publications, and has been featured on architecture and design websites in over thirty countries.

The office has been recognized by the international Architizer A+ Awards program, and has received a ‘Best of Ten’ Award from the editors of Interior Design Magazine, who selected the SkyHouse penthouse as the single most extraordinary apartment project from a decade of ‘Best of Year’ Award program winners.

In January 2023 the Saint Sarkis Church complex was designated as the 2022 ‘US Building of the Year’ on the influential ‘World-Architects’ web platform.

Published on: March 22, 2013

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metalocus, PEDRO NAVARRO

"SKYHOUSE by David Hotson" METALOCUS. Accessed

<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/skyhouse-david-hotson> ISSN 1139-6415