10-18 47th Avenue
Long Island City, NY
This conversion by Ascent Development, designed by Jorge Mastropietro Architects Atelier transformed a three-story, three family Long Island City 1900s home into a modern luxury two-family dwelling with a backyard and roof deck, while boasting an almost 100% increase in existing square-footage.
A full height addition was built onto the back of the existing structure, split to provide living space for both apartments. The first-floor residence has access to a 700-square-foot backyard, and the second-floor residence gets an 800-square-foot open-air roof deck. A glass atrium atop the central stair in the upper unit and the rear glass façade floods natural light throughout the space. A modern fiber cement panel adorns the street facade with a contrasting warmth provided in the natural wood framed window protrusions and paneling.
In order to achieve this transformation and extension without undermining the existing wood building supported by wood party walls shared with the neighboring properties, a new structure was designed inside the existing building and extending out in the rear. The structural system is cold-formed steel floor joists supported by cold-formed bearing/shear walls build inside of the existing wood bearing party walls. The building was retrofitted with a new wind/seismic lateral system consisting of cold formed steel shear walls and steel moment frames in the front and rear of the building.
Madsen also provided cold-formed steel shop drawings for this project.