Ukraine Road
Hunter, NY
+ Lexi Tsien, Talitha Liu, Jamie Latimer
+ General Contractor: J&C Home Rennovations
Soft-Firm is working on the renovation and expansion of a home in a Ukrainian community in Upstate New York. The project introduces contemporary interior and exterior interventions while preserving and amplifying the original vernacular details of the house. Custom millwork, patterning, aperture, material paneling, seams, and oversized painted graphics draw from Ukrainian embroidery and vernacular details, recalling the Ukrainian khata and stitch in with existing details.
A compact interior insertion gathers circulation, storage, work, and repose around a new spiral stair. Custom millwork and painted geometric details transform the stair into both a functional connector and a contemporary interpretation of Ukrainian embroidery and vernacular ornament.
Simple geometric volumes extend the existing house, creating new indoor and outdoor living spaces while maintaining the scale and character of the original khata.
Hunter, NY
+ Lexi Tsien, Talitha Liu, Jamie Latimer
+ General Contractor: J&C Home Rennovations
Soft-Firm is working on the renovation and expansion of a home in a Ukrainian community in Upstate New York. The project introduces contemporary interior and exterior interventions while preserving and amplifying the original vernacular details of the house. Custom millwork, patterning, aperture, material paneling, seams, and oversized painted graphics draw from Ukrainian embroidery and vernacular details, recalling the Ukrainian khata and stitch in with existing details.
A compact interior insertion gathers circulation, storage, work, and repose around a new spiral stair. Custom millwork and painted geometric details transform the stair into both a functional connector and a contemporary interpretation of Ukrainian embroidery and vernacular ornament.
Simple geometric volumes extend the existing house, creating new indoor and outdoor living spaces while maintaining the scale and character of the original khata.
Magnolia House
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY
+ Talitha Liu, Lexi Tsien, Jamie Latimer, Zohreh Ahmad, Clara Syme
+ In collaboration with ALA Studio
+ General Contractor: Black Square Builders
Soft-Firm worked in close collaboration with an artist to renovate a historic brownstone. The team looked to spolia, or architectural artifacts repurposed from ruins, as a methodology for incorporating existing historical details into new construction. This modality allows the project to embrace an incongruous and expansive timescale, referencing materials, textures, and fabrication techniques from antiquity to now.
Stereometric interventions interlock within the narrow footprint of a brownstone to pack in new program and storage. New volumes open up to reveal jewel boxes: a powder room, a hidden bar, or a recording studio. The formal language is sided - at once monumental and minimal, creating thresholds and pockets for gathering and repose.
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY
+ Talitha Liu, Lexi Tsien, Jamie Latimer, Zohreh Ahmad, Clara Syme
+ In collaboration with ALA Studio
+ General Contractor: Black Square Builders
Soft-Firm worked in close collaboration with an artist to renovate a historic brownstone. The team looked to spolia, or architectural artifacts repurposed from ruins, as a methodology for incorporating existing historical details into new construction. This modality allows the project to embrace an incongruous and expansive timescale, referencing materials, textures, and fabrication techniques from antiquity to now.
Stereometric interventions interlock within the narrow footprint of a brownstone to pack in new program and storage. New volumes open up to reveal jewel boxes: a powder room, a hidden bar, or a recording studio. The formal language is sided - at once monumental and minimal, creating thresholds and pockets for gathering and repose.
The archeological metaphor is also sectional, as one experiences atmospherically distinct environments from the parlor, basement, and cellar levels.
On the basement level, lower light levels encourage a deeper, more textural material palette, with distinct spaces for the garden-level apartment and a listening room that doubles as a guest room.
The cellar level takes on a grotto-like quality with spaces carved out for a pool, sauna, steamroom, and icebath.
Generation House
Brooklyn, NY
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An intergenerational coinvestment to foster a model for intergenerational living; for an elderly couple, designer / architect, and a family. Surgical and minimal interventions bring functionality to three dwellings while carefully respecting and restoring historical details. Taking cues from 2001 Space Odyssey, Donald Judd, and the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, various color blocks can be repositioned and reconfigured. Material contrasts between filagreed plaster and steel, reclaimed douglas fir and reconstituted foam, are meant to elevate each other.
+ Design: Lexi Tsien
+ General Contractor: Preservation Works
+ Steelwork: 618 Design
+ Landscape Consultant: Nishiel Patel Design
Concept:
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Parlor Level:
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Duplex:
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Garden level:
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Brooklyn, NY
+ Design: Lexi Tsien
+ General Contractor: Preservation Works
+ Steelwork: 618 Design
+ Landscape Consultant: Nishiel Patel Design
Concept:
Before / After / Process:
Garden:
Parlor Level:
Duplex:
Garden level:
Mask Room
New York, NY
The Mask Room is the sister to Belnord Kommunalka, another bespoke renovation by Soft-Firm in the oldest apartment building in New York City.
The project updates a room historically used as maid’s quarters into a flexible family den and display space for an intergenerational collection of curios, handcrafted masks, and sculpture.
We imagined the space as two opposing masks in the original peach color of the room, unfolded to reveal an interior of deeper greens and ochre, in conversation with the adjacent kitchen.
One wall houses storage and a fold-out couch for a guest bed facing a media wall, which masks a secret bar and a compact guest bath in a checkered and striped tile. Embedding multiple functionalities allows a single room to become a a family hangout, guest room, and salon that bridges between art and the domestic everyday.
+ Talitha Liu, Lexi Tsien
+ unrolled elevation drawn with Daniel Chang
+ photos by Jonah Rosenburg
New York, NY
The Mask Room is the sister to Belnord Kommunalka, another bespoke renovation by Soft-Firm in the oldest apartment building in New York City.
The project updates a room historically used as maid’s quarters into a flexible family den and display space for an intergenerational collection of curios, handcrafted masks, and sculpture.
We imagined the space as two opposing masks in the original peach color of the room, unfolded to reveal an interior of deeper greens and ochre, in conversation with the adjacent kitchen.
One wall houses storage and a fold-out couch for a guest bed facing a media wall, which masks a secret bar and a compact guest bath in a checkered and striped tile. Embedding multiple functionalities allows a single room to become a a family hangout, guest room, and salon that bridges between art and the domestic everyday.
+ Talitha Liu, Lexi Tsien
+ unrolled elevation drawn with Daniel Chang
+ photos by Jonah Rosenburg
Belnord Kommunalka
New York, NY
Belnord Kommunalka is inspired by the kommunalka kitchens of the Soviet era that subdivided and redefined formerly bourgeois homes as intensely functional and collective. The apartment has been in the owners’ family for generations, serving as a gathering place where they have hosted friends and family through the decades.
Soft-Firm was tasked with splicing a modern kitchen into the space, while preserving the collective memories of loved ones who have gathered around the kitchen table. The project integrates the owner’s china cabinet and enhances existing arched geometries with custom lime and citrine hues, referencing the space’s previous color scheme. Linoleum counters and floors, stainless steel accents, and a vintage dining set sourced from upstate New York evoke classic moments of Americana.
+ Featured in Dwell Magazine
+ Lexi Tsien, Tanvi Marina Rao
+ Photo credit Jonah Rosenburg + Lexi Tsien
New York, NY
Belnord Kommunalka is inspired by the kommunalka kitchens of the Soviet era that subdivided and redefined formerly bourgeois homes as intensely functional and collective. The apartment has been in the owners’ family for generations, serving as a gathering place where they have hosted friends and family through the decades.
Soft-Firm was tasked with splicing a modern kitchen into the space, while preserving the collective memories of loved ones who have gathered around the kitchen table. The project integrates the owner’s china cabinet and enhances existing arched geometries with custom lime and citrine hues, referencing the space’s previous color scheme. Linoleum counters and floors, stainless steel accents, and a vintage dining set sourced from upstate New York evoke classic moments of Americana.
+ Featured in Dwell Magazine
+ Lexi Tsien, Tanvi Marina Rao
+ Photo credit Jonah Rosenburg + Lexi Tsien
