At a busy corner in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, a new residential building rises from its narrow 25-foot-wide site, bridging the area’s past and present, brick by brick.
Completed earlier this year, the six-unit building nods to the area’s richly layered heritage and extends it, says Sara Ianniciello, the project’s lead interior designer and the founder of Makers Collective Design. “The goal was to contribute something contemporary and enduring to the block, acknowledging the site’s evolution while remaining grounded in Williamsburg’s architectural character.”
Photography by Giada Paoloni
To the west, Union Street zips past, a palimpsest of commercial spaces, workshops, and mainstay diners with their glowing neon intact; to the south, a run of hard-working row houses share the scenery with mature street trees jockeying for sunlight. The new building acts as a pivot point between the two, rooted firmly in place while offering respite, too, with rich interior finishes that evoke luxury and an enveloping sense of calm.
Photography by Giada Paoloni
To achieve it, Ianniciello looked to the nearby factories and workshops, using their proportions and materials as a kind of borrowed language, she says. Blackened metal, so prevalent in factory windows, signage, and doorways, informed the design of the divided-light steel windows, which create an interplay of light and shadows in the residences throughout the day.
Photography by Giada Paoloni
Classic finishes like walnut wood, unlacquered brass, traditional wall paneling, and oak herringbone floors were chosen for their enduring character. “It’s all connected to Brooklyn, but without becoming thematic in any way,” Ianniciello says. (The site’s own history is worth a pause here: It was previously occupied by a tumbledown, single-family house that had sat vacant for so long that an oak tree had grown up through the center of it, pushing the warped wood and vinyl siding out of its path. The developer carefully relocated the tree before breaking ground.)
Photography by Giada Paoloni
In the fifth-floor duplex, the entry hall opens to a living space with soaring 20-foot ceilings inspired by the lofts that still dot the area. A graceful archway leads into the kitchen, where the ceiling lowers to 13 feet and is visually demarcated by walnut beams that complement the classic shaker millwork below. (A ladder is enlisted to reach the double-stacked glass cabinets at the top.)
Photography by Giada Paoloni
Swirling Calacatta Viola marble, selected for the countertops and backsplash, injects deep purple and pink hues that strike a balance with the patinated blackened steel used to clad the rangehood, yet another hat tip to welding shops and industry. Outside, lush permanent planters wrap the unit’s window sills, creating the effect of a living wall in the streetscape below.
Photography by Giada Paoloni
Up the slim oak staircase to the second level, Ianniciello’s background in hotel design comes to bear. Each of the three bedrooms is compact, yet carefully planned for comfort and quiet, like that of a small boutique hotel. The accompanying bathrooms are equally restrained, repeating the same Nordic grey marble in various sizes—mosaic in the shower, large-format ion the walls and floors—to minimize visual disruption and create a moody, spa-like ambiance.
Photography by Giada Paoloni
Spread out over 1,400 square feet (and quickly sold), it is a testament to the neighborhood’s constant evolution, and its designer’s, too. The project was the first for her now three-year-old firm and remains a touchstone for her work.
After two decades working in hospitality and residential design mostly in San Francisco and New York, she struck out on her own to get back to design work and, she says, “stay close to the narrative.” This month, her team of four moves to offices in a former pencil factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn—a fitting backdrop to a story-driven practice.