Delancey & Essex Street Garage

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The design goals for the facades of the Delancey & Essex St. Garage include the development of a lightweight, naturally ventilated, visually dynamic facade that contributes to the rich texture of the changing neighborhood. The proposed solution is a three dimensional, porous facade composed of 1.25” diameter cables that are woven as if on a loom. This concept of weaving is loosely associated with the history of the Lower East Side and the early garment industry there.
The pattern of the cable design is inspired by the work of various abstract artists including Optical Art works such as Francois Morellet’s “Grillage” drawings that are composed of a system of simple grids overlaid in a way that creates new larger scale patterns. The facade solution was produced by offsetting two layers of stainless steel-jacketed composite cables, which when viewed together, create moire patterns that seemingly move across the face of the building as the viewer’s position changes by walking or driving up the street. To achieve this effect, the exterior plane of cables, which stretch from the second to sixth floors, was shaped so that it folds out as much as 2 feet from the face of the back layer of cables, which are in a flat plane.
The cables will be attached by stainless steel o-rings sleeved around the cable and connected to steel tube “combs.” The cables will have integral end fittings that will have turnbuckles for tightening and adjustability. The termination details are simple and unobtrusive.

Awards and Publications:
2018       AIANY Architecture Citation Award
2017       Delancey and Essex Parking Garage / Michielli + Wyetzner Architects Arch Daily November 24, 2017
2017       SARA NY Design Excellence Award
2017       Metropolis Magazine May 2017 City Designer’s Picks for New York
2013       We Build the City, NYC’s Design + Construction Excellence Program. ORO Editions
2013       NYC Chapter AIA Projects Merit Award
2011       NYC Public Design Commission Excellence in Design Award 2011
2011       Oculus,”From NIMBY to YIMBY”, Winter 2011
2011       Architectural Record,”Investments in Public Architecture Pay Off for the City”, September 2011
2011       Real Estate Journal, “Michielli + Wyetzner Architects to begin $4 million cable façade renovation, August 9, 2011
2011       New York Observer, “Finally! A Pretty Parking Garage”, June 29, 2011

Greenpoint EMS Station

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The Greenpoint Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is a new, two-story, 12,400-square-foot facility that is part of an NYC program to improve response times to medical emergencies throughout the city. Located on a prominent site in the growing Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Williamsburg, it supports the Fire Department of New York ambulance vehicles and crews who have come to consider the station a second home. Commissioned by the Department of Design and Construction as part of mayor Bloomberg’s Design Excellence Program, the building is a trenchant example of the new paradigm for New York City municipal architecture.

The station’s requirements for vehicles and staff led to a four-part organization of the interior. The east side which houses the four ambulances and command vehicle requires higher ceilings than the rest of the station and this increase in height helps organize the building’s functions. On the lower west side are the lieutenant’s office, captain’s office, and other administrative spaces. On the second floor above the vehicle bays are locker rooms and bathrooms for the 54 women and 97 men who maintain the station’s three shifts. Across the atrium, to the west, is a fitness facility, training room, and 700-square-foot combined kitchen and lounge area. The first floor’s different ceiling heights repeat at the roof line. The architects mark it with a skylight that extends from the front to the back of the building bringing daylight to the second floor and through an opening in the floor to the ground level. The double height glass-enclosed entry also marks the division between functions and is filled with natural light.

On the exterior, FDNY-red, roll-up doors on the vehicle side introduce bright color for what is otherwise a cool, glass facade. Providing a diagonal sculptural break is the transparent exit stair, covered with glass-enclosed perforated aluminum panels, that runs parallel along the street facade, connecting the entrance with the second floor. The 90-foot-long, second-story translucent glass wall with a honeycomb pattern set into the glass, appears to float above the ground floor and helps to form the building’s strong identity. Aglow in the evening, the Greenpoint EMS Station has become a distinct presence in the Williamsburg community.

Awards and Publications:
2018       AIANY Architecture Citation Award
2017       Delancey and Essex Parking Garage / Michielli + Wyetzner Architects Arch Daily November 24, 2017
2017       SARA NY Design Excellence Award
2017       Metropolis Magazine May 2017 City Designer’s Picks for New York
2013       We Build the City, NYC’s Design + Construction Excellence Program. ORO Editions
2013       NYC Chapter AIA Projects Merit Award
2011     NYC Public Design Commission Excellence in Design Award 2011
2011       Oculus,”From NIMBY to YIMBY”,Winter 2011
2011       Architectural Record,”Investments in Public Architecture Pay Off for the City”,September 2011
2011      Real Estate Journal, “Michielli + Wyetzner Architects to begin $4 million cable façade renovation, August 9, 2011
2011       New York Observer, “Finally! A Pretty Parking Garage”, June 29, 2011

Lewis Davis Pavilion

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Waterside Plaza is a four tower residential complex built in the 1970’s as middle-class housing under the Mitchell-Lama statute. It holds an iconic, but somewhat isolated presence on the east side of Manhattan.

As part of a larger overall update and improvement, Michielli + Wyetzner Architects were asked to create a new event space to draw residents and visitors with a program of lectures and performances. The new facility contains an auditorium with loose seating for 70 people with a moveable glass wall that allows it to expand to 140 people. In addition, there is a bar and lounge area with a fireplace and computer tables, and a conference room for private meetings. Combining rigorous technical requirements with a wide variety of programmatic elements the space is designed to be flexible and refined. 

The project emphasizes light, acoustics and materials to create a welcoming and refined environment that is a backdrop for a variety of program uses including quiets study, socializing, banquets or performance.      

Equipped with a state of the art audiovisual system, the lecture space was soundproofed with double wall and ceiling configurations to screen out sound from the residential apartments above and the adjacent FDR Drive to the west.

An illuminated vestibule distinguishes the event space from the surrounding retail storefronts on the plaza level. Clad in stainless steel panels on the interior, terrazzo floors and acoustical wood paneling combine with a metal baffle ceiling to provide a warm and welcoming environment for this community gathering space.

Awards and Publications:
2019       AIANY Interiors Speed Presentation Selection

ICS Brooklyn

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This new 6,000 square foot office fit-out for Independence Care System (ICS) is an expansion adjacent to an existing outreach and office center in downtown Brooklyn.

ICS is a not-for-profit advocate organization for the disabled providing community center functions, counseling, workshops, and wheelchair maintenance services. This is one of three centers located in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

Located on the 5th floor of what was the JW Mays Department Store, the new office retains many of the existing decorative features that were part of the original store construction from the early 20th Century. Combining original pressed tin ceilings and ornate wood moldings, the space is an amalgam of old and new, with the ghost of a demolished staircase visible on an existing demising wall.

In addition to their constituents, many of the employees are also disabled and a broad central corridor allows ample maneuverability for wheelchairs. Running parallel for its entire length is an illuminated fascia. With natural light entering at the west end of the space, this glowing surface symbolically extends the light from the café area at the windows along the entire 150-foot length of the office.

An existing brick bearing wall intersects the illuminated fascia where an opening was created to allow access to a new call center at the rear of the space. In addition, a neighboring tenant space to the north, with only one exit stair, required the inclusion of a new public corridor through the new ICS space as part of the fit-out design. Bifurcating the plan, the passageway was conceived as a tunnel that does not reach the ceiling allowing the volume of the space to flow above it. Painted red to signal its emergency egress function; glass doors on hold-opens allow passage through it.

New York Hospital Queens: Astoria Primary Care Clinic

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This new off- site primary care clinic is one in a series of new neighborhood practices intended to raise the profile of the New York Hospital Queens in the surrounding community. Located on a corner site along the busy thoroughfare of 30th Avenue in Astoria, the distinctive design is intended to give this satellite facility a powerful presence in the neighborhood.

A new entrance canopy was added to provide shelter and act as an emblem for the facility. The canopy leads into a ceiling plane within the waiting room; visible from the exterior it creates a strong form along the street.

A perforated metal screen was used to mask the irregular pattern of existing windows on the ground floor. The screen allows daylight to enter during the day and artificial light to emit a mysterious glow on the exterior in the evening. Floating above the newly clad ground floor, the second story brick box is unchanged save for the front elevation where the two existing windows were combined into one overt horizontal opening increasing the natural light in the upper waiting room and forming a distinct composition in harmony with the glass and steel elevation below.

The two-story brick building was completely gutted to accommodate new exam and consultation rooms. The main circulating corridor on both floors is located along the perimeter of the cross street to allow natural light to enter into the patient area. Waiting rooms on the first and second floor will allow ample amounts of controlled natural light into the space.

Distinct geometric volumes interact with each other at the reception desk and a new boldly-colored enclosed stair volume provides a dramatic transition between floors and is also visible from the street. In addition, an illuminated ceiling spills light onto the sidewalk through the floor to ceiling glass contributing to the unique presence of NYHQ in the surrounding area.

Awards and Publications:
2016       Masonry Design Magazine “This Satellite Facility is a Powerful Presence in the Community” May 2016
2016       SNAP Architectural News + Products “Curb Appeal” Jan/Feb 2016
2015       AIA National Healthcare Design Honor Award

Callen-Lorde Community Health Center

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Mental Health & Primary Care Clinic

The new Callen-Lorde Community Health Center satellite clinic combines two separate but related disciplines on two floors in an 8-story, turn-of-the-century loft building in Chelsea in New York City. The new off-site practice houses a mental health facility on the 5th floor and a primary care clinic on the 4th floor. The health center sought to develop a site that would meet the very different regulatory requirements of the two practices which included occupying separate spaces. Through design, a seamless experience is created for patients accessing their behavioral and medical care. The setting provides licensed medical care and mental health with case managers floating between the two spaces ensuring that patients receive both services and that there is no conflict between the treatment plans or therapeutic regimens.

The square layout of the 5th floor has service spaces along the east and west party walls with consultation rooms along the north and south window walls. Channel glass partitions along the corridors allow natural light to enter deep into the facility. The channel glass provides the necessary acoustical and visual privacy required for psychotherapy while maintaining a robust surface for the occasional patient impact. Upon entering, a linear waiting room under a lowered blue ceiling sits opposite the reception desk and large group room. With its distinctive circular perforated doors the multi-purpose meeting room is divisible into two smaller group rooms and opens up completely to the waiting area for larger events. The cork floors and exposed, surface-mounted light fixtures with the adjacent baffle ceilings are intended to give the new mental health facility a warm and modern atmosphere antithetical to typical institutional healthcare design. A complement of cool and calming blues were employed to complete the palette.

The primary care clinic comprises half of the 4th floor. Intended to serve the patients of the mental health facility one floor above, a similar palette of materials was employed in the design. Exam rooms line the south facing wall with clerestory windows allowing natural light to enter the corridor and interior exam rooms across the hall. Strong graphics and a baffle ceiling along with similarly blue-colored wall and ceiling planes provide a distinct look for the facility which is in harmony with the mental health facility on the floor above.

Awards and Publications:

2018       AIANY Interiors Speed Presentation Selection

Callen-Lorde Community Health Extension Clinic Bronx

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Michielli + Wyetzner Architects are helping to create a brand for off-site satellite health centers for the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. Their new extension clinic combines mental health and primary care services in a single location in the underserved South Bronx. Located on the ground floor in a storefront space, the clinic contains exam rooms therapy rooms and support spaces.

Through design, a seamless experience is created for patients accessing their behavioral and medical care. The single setting provides licensed medical and mental health care ensuring that patients receive both services without conflict between the treatment plans or therapeutic regimens.

Upon entering the facility, an illuminated wall runs the length of the linear waiting room. Visible from the street, the glowing fascia provides a strong presence in the surrounding neighborhood. Large translucent windows provide abundant amounts of natural light from the sidewalk beyond. Designed as two separate pavilions, the reception stations for the clinic and a separate pharmacy contain lockable roll down gates for security.

Therapy and exam rooms, and support spaces are located off of a double loaded corridor at the rear. A high ceiling allows for large clerestory windows that bring natural light deep into the interior. Intended to relate to another Callen-Lorde clinic in Chelsea, vibrant colors and cork floors and metal baffle ceilings complete a warm and welcoming palette.

Gateway II

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Located in East Harlem at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and East 126th Street, this new 50,000 square foot mixed-use building incorporates retail, office, and residential uses. The developer requested a unified design that provides the separation of uses and respects their different scales.  The six-story building has a ground floor of retail space followed by two floors of office space. The remaining top three floors house a community facility with a residential health-care component.

The primary exterior material of glazed brick is articulated with a varied fenestration pattern that expresses the programmatic divisions of the floors: larger fixed windows for the lower office floors, smaller scale operable windows with related mechanical grills for the upper two floors of community facility and residences. Two entrances serve the different uses, with a lobby for the offices located along the commercial Lexington Avenue and a lobby for the residential community facility portion located along the smaller-scaled 126th Street. The top floor is set back from the street wall providing a terrace and green roof for use by the residents.  The overall massing and floor to floor heights allow for a potential future connections to an adjacent existing building owned by the same developer.

Awards and Publications:
2011      Building Design and Construction, “Harlem Facility Combines Social Services with Retail, Office Space”, January  2011
2010       Real Estate Weekly, “Hybrid building making life in East Harlem Better All Round”, December 8, 2010
2010       e-Oculus, “Gateway Opens Doors to Harlem, December 2010
2010      Dexigner, “Unique Mixed-use Building in Harlem by Michielli + Wyetzner Architects”, December 2010


EDAW/AECOM

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Occupying the top floor of a 1910 New York City landmarked building, this new 10,000 square foot office interior for the global urban planning and landscape architecture firm EDAW/AECOM is the first of a comprehensive design upgrade of its North American offices. Intended to foster creativity among its staff and inspire its clients, the open office space has a new skylight opening located above a central glass-paneled meeting room. Tracks suspended from the ceiling-mounted steel trusses allow individual steel-framed glass panels of the meeting room to slide across the office creating a number of different space configurations for conferences, displays, and office-wide presentations. This flexible design element meets the ever-changing needs of the office while providing a vibrant and dynamic focal point. The project’s construction methods, mechanical system, lighting design and material selection achieve a rating of LEED Gold reflecting the commitment of the EDAW/AECOM organization towards sustainable and environmentally responsive design.

Awards and Publications:
2010 Winner of AIA NYC Chapter Interiors Honor Award

LEED Certified Gold

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

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Located within an urban campus on the upper east side of Manhattan, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine occupies the 12th & 13th floors of a 26-story tower completed in 1975. To meet the 21st century needs of the students and faculty, Michielli + Wyetzner Architects designed new offices for the Dean of Medical Education (construction completed 2006) and a phased project for student spaces, including a new 150-seat auditorium, teaching laboratories, seminar rooms, student lounges and study spaces.

MWA reconfigured the floors so that corridors are wider and open to views to the exterior, bringing natural light deep into the interior. New sustainable materials such as cork, marmoleum, and recycled nylon carpets are combined with glass walls and baffle ceilings to provide a warm, maintenance-free environment.

The design of the teaching spaces reflects the new direction of medical education. State-of-the-art distance learning and audio-visual and computer aids are incorporated into all classrooms. The free-form auditorium on the 12th floor provides an identifiable center for the program while the space surrounding it acts as the informal gathering area for the school. These new spaces for informal interaction create a campus-like atmosphere for the floors.

In addition, Michielli + Wyetzner Architects have completed projects for various other constituencies at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine including the Department of Orthopaedics and the Department of Oncological Science/Cancer Prevention Control.

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine Department of Orthopedics

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Michielli + Wyetzner Architects designed the 7,000 square foot Department of Orthopedics medical suite for the Faculty Practice Associates. The clinic includes exam rooms, an X-ray suite, doctors’ offices and offices for billing and scheduling. A generous central corridor allows patients to circulate through on crutches or with an attendant. Bamboo walls protected with vertical stainless steel hand rails provide a visually rich environment. Outdated X-ray light boxes are used as art pieces in the public spaces, while exam rooms are outfitted with the latest digital technology. The reception and waiting area provides a large format LED screen for relaying the latest practices and procedures in orthopedics.

PHI National Headquarters

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This five-floor, 40,000 square foot interior encompasses the offices, workshops, training areas and technology centers for three independent, but programmatically linked organizations: PHI, ICS & CHCA. Delivering high-quality care to the disabled constituents they serve, the users required a space especially suited to the unique needs of each organization.

The design provides distinct elements to make each floor, which is dedicated to a specific organization, unique. Elements common to each, such as cafés and lounges provide a sense of coherence across the build-out. Located in the top floors of a 14-story building, low walls and glass partitions provide natural light and views outdoors from essentially every office or workstation.

Awards and Publications:
2013       New York Real Estate Journal, “Michielli + Wyetzner designs new space for three not for profits”, July 2013

H20 Restaurant and Lounge

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H2O restaurant is the key component of a complete renovation of a 7,800 square- foot building on the plaza level of the Waterside Plaza complex on the East River and 25th Street in Manhattan. A two-thousand square-foot commercial kitchen serves a 100-seat dining room that can be combined with the adjacent community room for larger gatherings. A back-lit interior glass wall with a custom-designed honeycomb interlayer is transparent when viewed frontally, but when viewed from oblique angles has the effect of looking through water.

NYU Medical Center Courtyard

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2011 Winner of American Society of Landscape Architects Merit Award, the 6,000 square foot NYU Langone Medical Center Courtyard is bounded on all four sides by existing medical center building and sits above an existing complex of basement laboratories. MWA and landscape architect Joanna Pertz, designed a new elevated planting bed above the only section of the courtyard situated over earth to be the focus of the space. Two existing marble lion sculptures bookend the planter where birch trees, mondo grass and ferns are clustered on the south end of the planter that gives way to a mounded lawn at the north that enjoys direct sunlight. Precast concrete steps wrap three sides of the planter. Along with a row of black granite benches opposite an informal seating area is created for people to gather and relax. New wood table seating occupies the zone to the south of the courtyard creating an outdoor extension of the adjacent interior café. A line of large-scaled dish planters with perennials and birch trees masks the solid stone facade at the west. Gray precast concrete pavers provide a sense of scale for the courtyard with a beach stone border acting as a transition to the surrounding facades.

Awards and Publications:
2012       ASLA Design Merit Award

Big Mountain

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IN COLLABORATION WITH GILDAY ARCHITECTS. Located in downtown Jackson, this 20,000 square foot mixed-use infill building includes residential retail and office space. Each of the three top-floor apartments opens onto a private terrace. A skylight in the central courtyard permits natural light to enter the center of the 140 foot long open office floor on the second level. A moveable mahogany screen, supported by standard hanger-door hardware, protects the south-facing spaces from direct sun and provides open views of the mountains.

Hotel Quito

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This renovation and expansion master plan for the Hotel Quito envisions this 1950’s modernist hotel as the core of an “urban resort” in downtown Quito, Ecuador. The goal of the plan is to recapture the tourist and business market and become a destination for city residents.  To do so, the complex will provide high-quality living, shopping, work, health and recreation facilities, most significantly a new 60,000-square-foot residential tower and a new 40,000-square-foot office building on the ten-acre site.  The enlarged complex builds on the original design of the late Edward Durrell Stone, who sited the hotel with sweeping views overlooking a mountainous landscape and downtown Quito.  The expanded complex will also offer a much wider variety of amenities including a casino, underground parking for 500 cars, three new ballrooms, a new health club and spa, and outdoor pool, gardens and recreational facilities.  Curved single-pane glass is proposed to create an undulating transparent enclosure for the new residential tower and mixed-use building that continues the spirit of Stone’s original design. The massing of the tower will conclude a row of upscale residential towers that line this ridge of the city. Visible from all directions, the sculptural form of the glass tower will be a focal point in the city.   The climate of Quito is consistently mild year round so that minimal mechanical equipment is necessary for heating and air conditioning. The new buildings are designed to make the best use of natural ventilation and passive solar control.  The complex will be up-to-date both in its facilities and systems efficiency.

Valeo Technical Center

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Davis Brody Bond, LLP

This 120,000 square foot technical center for a French automobile components manufacturer in suburban Detroit houses two formerly separate corporate divisions within a single building. Two levels of open office area allow for a flexible arrangement or integrated project teams consisting of project management, sales, design and testing staffs. Transparent glass walls, detailed for acoustic control, permit project team members to be in close proximity to the double volume testing laboratory. Towers containing shared conference rooms punctuate the office and lab areas, which further integrate teams of designers with lab technicians. The glazed double-volume testing lab is visible from the street, satisfying the owner’s objective to publicly display the primary function of the facility.

An exhibit area highlighting new products and a full-size vehicle is located in a glass cube entrance lobby adjacent to other non-secure program elements such as conference rooms and the cafeteria. Horizontal aluminum sunshades on the south and west protect the interior from glare and direct solar gain. The building’s design reflects not only the materials of the products made by Valeo, but also qualities such as transparency, efficiency, and collaboration that are hallmarks of the company. The building received the National AIA Excellence in Design Award and the Business Week / Architectural Record Award in 2000 for being exemplary of the positive effects that a good design can have on productivity and employee satisfaction.