Bergen Brooklyn
Bergen Brooklyn is a minimalist condominium located in Brooklyn, New York, designed by Frida Escobedo Studio with development by Avdoo & Partners Development and interiors by Workstead. The handmade ceramic block has become something of a litmus test for contemporary architecture – a material that signals craft-consciousness while quietly asserting permanence in an era of curtain walls and prefabrication. At Bergen, Frida Escobedo employs custom masonry not as nostalgic gesture but as structural argument, creating blocks that vary in opacity to negotiate the perpetual urban tension between exposure and enclosure. The facade reads as both solid and porous, with each block calibrated to filter light differently, transforming the building envelope into a gradient of privacy rather than a binary threshold.
This concern with porosity extends beyond the exterior. The central Glass House – a curtain-walled rectangular volume suspended above Dean Park – operates as the project’s conceptual hinge, connecting the east and west residential wings while collapsing the distinction between arrival sequence and lived experience. Walking through this transparent passage, residents move through what is essentially a section cut of the building, the garden below and residences above rendered equally legible. It is architecture as diagram, but one experienced bodily rather than intellectually.
Workstead’s interiors respond to Escobedo’s geometries with material restraint that borders on monastic. White oak appears throughout – in flooring, cabinetry, custom millwork – developing the kind of patina that suggests these spaces are designed to be inhabited rather than merely occupied. The kitchen pendants, custom-designed by Workstead, hang as singular moments of articulation in otherwise neutral fields. Honed Taj Mahal quartzite countertops meet white oak cabinetry in joints so refined they read as inevitable rather than designed, the kind of detail work that disappears into coherence.
The primary bathrooms establish a different material register entirely. Honed Crema Vanilla marble wraps walls in the manner of Brutalist interiors – continuous, encompassing, refusing decoration. Against this backdrop, brushed nickel hardware and custom white oak vanities introduce warmth without sentimentality. Secondary bathrooms shift again, with matte Tatami-Beige tiles and honed Agglo terrazzo creating textured fields that reward close inspection while maintaining overall visual calm.
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