However, the housing situation in NY City is so dire that maybe we DO need these "trailers in the sky."
What do YOU think?
Inside the Brooklyn Factory Birthing NYC's New Micro Units
[All photos by Max Touhey]
Thousands of tiny apartments exist in New York City, but small space seekers won't find what they're looking for in new construction. Zoning laws enacted in 1987 prohibit apartments from being less than 400 square feet, which is much larger than what one can find in old tenements and SRO buildings, but thanks to a new development rising at 335 East 27th Street, the city will get its first ever modern microdwellings. Called My Micro NY, the building is the product of a city-sponsored design competition inspired by the growing number of single New Yorkers living solo. Designed by nARCHITECTS and developed by Monadnock Development, the building will hold 55 studios, ranging from 260 to 360 square feet, and consist of 66 prefabricated modules, which are currently being constructed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Each apartment is its own module, and features a Juliet balcony, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, a closet, overhead storage, and a kitchenette with two electric burners, an under-counter refrigerator, and an 18-inch dishwasher. With 9'8" ceilings and large windows, the units actually feel quite spacious, but a rooftop deck and common areas provide extra breathing room. The building's steel structure is currently going up, and the modules will be delivered to the site in June. Completion is set for late fall.
Twenty-two of the apartments will be affordable, and the market rate units will likely rent for $2,000 to $3,000 a month, though project manager Tobias Oriwol said that rents have not yet been determined. Monadnock mostly does affordable housing projects, and this is the firm's first development with a significant amount of market rate units (1 John Street, which they are co-developing, is number two).
Oriwol said the project was attractive to Monadnock because it offered a chance to do something out of the ordinary and inform new zoning laws. "Even the [Request for Proposals] was different than most. It was much more design-focused and discouraged different types of units." Since the RFP weighed heavily on design, Monadnock chose to collaborate with architects they'd never worked with before, nARCHITECTS. "We wanted a young, creative firm," said Oriwol. The end result, a prefabricated modular building, was another first for Monadnock Development.
The modules are being built by Capsys, a company that's been making modular buildings for nearly two decades in their factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard's former foundry.
Each module takes about two to three weeks to build.
First, a module's steel frame is constructed.
Each module is structurally independent.
Once the frame is complete, it's propped up...
...and the concrete floor is poured.
The hoist that lifts the steel frames.
Elevating the module allows work to continue on the bottom while the concrete sets.
"Modular construction allows for a lot of things to be happening at once," said Oriwol. "One wall can be open, one wall can be closed, so you can be painting, doing wiring and plumbing all at the same time."
The walls come after the floor.
Once the exterior is complete, work moves inside.
A construction worker plasters the interior walls. Some finishes, like the bathroom tiling, will be installed here in the factory, but other features that could break during transportation, like the kitchen's glass backsplash, will be installed on site.
This is a larger corner unit, and the photographer is standing in the main living space, looking toward the kitchen, bathroom, and front door. The white kitchen cabinets are covered with a protective blue plastic.
Looking into a unit from the front door. The kitchen will be on the left, and the bathroom is on the right. The large window at the back is a sliding glass door that opens onto a Juliet balcony.
Each module has a section of the corridor, and the end units, like this one, have a space that will hold storage lockers for each floor. All of these interior spaces will be finished after the modules are in place at the site.
Each module has a concrete floor and ceiling, which adds about 18 extra inches per floor compared to traditional construction. Interior ceiling heights measure 9'8", but the exterior measures 12 feet tall. The building rises nine stories, which is the tallest ever constructed by Capsys.
The weight of the modules varies greatly, but many weigh about 54,000 pounds.
Completed modules wait to be moved to storage lots outside the factory.
The front of a corner unit.
As of last Friday, 35 modules were complete and out the door.
Once the modules get stacked in place at the site, they just need insulation and the masonry facade.
Completed modules sit outside. Once all 64 modules are ready, they will be moved to the site. Since the modules are considered extra wide loads, transportation of the pieces will happen at night, with a police escort on a pre-approved truck route over the Manhattan Bridge. About four to six sections can be moved in one night.
Old signs from the building's World War II days remain.
This massive steel hoist was used to move ship parts.
The hoist moved along tracks that run the length of the warehouse.
The factory's second story sits largely unused now, but balconies provide a nice vantage point over the warehouse floor.
The upstairs hallway, where all of the rooms were empty and covered with a quarter inch of dust.
The current state of the site at 335 East 27th Street on the corner of First Avenue.
A rendering of the (almost) final product..jpg)
The building was designed to look like four separate towers.
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· My Micro NY [Monadnock Construction]
· Monadnock Development [official]
· All coverage of 335 East 27th Street [Curbed]
· Planning for the Even Tinier Apartments of NYC's Future [Curbed]
· All Micro Week 2015 coverage [Curbed]
· Monadnock Development [official]
· All coverage of 335 East 27th Street [Curbed]
· Planning for the Even Tinier Apartments of NYC's Future [Curbed]
· All Micro Week 2015 coverage [Curbed]
COMMENTS (15 EXTANT)
i think it is a dam shame that they are allowed to build this crap. They are no better than the tenements of the lower east side from the turn of the century.
and the market rate, 2K, are you kidding me??????
I wonder how the units are transported such that they don't warp or twist in any way, cracking finished sheetrock and shifting kitchen cabinets.
...not if you're a recent college grad major in architecture, $45K is the avg salary. It's a damn shame the very young designers who probably stayed late in the office drawing these things up can't even afford to live in one.
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