Blog: Meet SHoP

June 26, 2017

Making an impact

Making a memorable impact on the iconic Manhattan skyline is no easy task. With so many great apartments and condominiums for sale, it takes an exceptional architectural firm like SHoP Architects to do something truly different and inspiring. Over two decades, the team at SHoP has peppered NYC with some deliciously innovative architecture, and their latest feat is the vastly ambitious Essex Crossing, which includes the new luxury condos at 242 Broome. By 2024, this project—helmed by SHoP—will have converted six acres of underutilized real estate into thousands of new homes (both public housing and condominiums), as well as a new cinema and public park. SHoP, it turns out, doesn’t do things by halves.

 

SHoP in the world

It’s not just residences that SHoP excels in; nor does the firm concentrate their efforts on NYC. Theirs is an international and heterogeneous success story. In Seoul, South Korea, SHoP created Hangil Book House, an organic-looking structure (with undulating wooden fabric) that echoes the surrounding Art Park’s landscape. The Konza Techno Pavilion in Nairobi, Kenya, meanwhile, reflects the shape of the native acacia tree, with a canopy that also creates much-needed respite from the sun. SHoP also does its bit for good causes; for example, they helped areas affected by the 2015 earthquake in Nepal when they partnered with the Kids of Kathmandu and Asia

Friendship Network to create 50 easy-assembly schools. Creative, crafty, and with a conscience too—that’s SHoP. Other standout projects across the States include the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, revamped with 4,700 brushed-aluminum fins, and an “environmentally sensitive, technologically savvy” campus at Richmond Bay, Berkeley. Their magic touch has been felt worldwide.

 

242 Broome in the city

SHoP’s latest success story, however, is quite close to home. 242 Broome is an altogether unique set of condominiums, located on the Lower East Side. This 14 – story build appears to cascade down from the skies, its champagne -tinged, anodized aluminum surface glinting in the sun. Residents will appreciate the torquing design, which allows greater space and light into the one- to three-bedroom apartments. There is something about this building that at once makes you sit up and take notice; at the same time, 242 Broome has slotted into the Lower East Side with ease—as if it were always meant to be here. To admire SHoP’s latest masterstroke from the streets below is a pleasure. To live within its luxurious design is sheer heaven.

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