The BOND NOHO hotel is a corner lot located at the intersection of the cobble-stoned Bond Street and the busy Lafayette Street, in an area that predates the introduction of the city grid, the complexity of the lot being the root of the design of the BOND NOHO hotel. This rare exception of the Manhattan grid became the originator of the design diagram and ultimately of the building image.

The design strategy was formulated “walking the site”: coming down from Astor place, we were intrigued by the high visibility of the sign previously erected at the corner, due to the fact that this particular block “kicks” out from the grid, markedly towards the East.

The neighborhood presents a complex texture, thus allowing for a truly contemporary building to be inserted, fact that was understood by the Landmark Commission where the building was approved unanimously in one session.

The new building is conceived, on Lafayette, as a taller seven stories structure, keeping with the surrounding buildings scale. The structure does not present a façade per se on Lafayette, but a thick tri-dimensional buffer, peeled and sliced to allow for transparency as well as privacy; the screen is made out of corrugated steel, sympathetic to the manufacturing nature of the area, perforated with varying density. The Lafayette shiny structure, on the Bond Street side, a smaller “textured” masonry structure, more in scale with the federal house surrounding.

After the building was designed, we uncovered an historical photo of the site that shows on Lafayette a façade with similar geometry; since designing is an intuitive act, it is not unusual to recognize the “precedent” after the project is delineated.

To accentuate the “crease” between the two “structures”, small outlooks are inserted, a narrow slot, similar to the alleys nearby, is left between the new building and the lot on the North, so to allow for additional light and air and a glimpse of the interior court.

The repetition of the window wall stock components, assembled with a sense of unpredictability and rational randomness, create a customized effect and recalls the laciness of the cast iron buildings.

The Hotel lives in symbiosis with a granite and cast glass sidewalk, which illuminates the underground pool.

The modernist promise of integration of art and architecture informs the design of the public spaces , t he room’s interior is not a “home away from home”, rather it draws its imagery from the free flowing spaces of early modernism, quest that found its natural adaptation in the open sunlit “heroic” lofts of the 70’s.

The interior spaces are spacious, light and airy, sparse and unexpected, they allow the traveler to dip, on a temporary basis, into the authentic loft living,” power working as well as fantasy, a “microloft” with all the amenities of the ”live work” life.

The aesthetic fantasy of the glass house promise is fulfilled in the hotel environment, since here truly minimalist conditions can exist, due to the fact that the occupants travel with minimal belongings and to the ever-present service

The result is a 50 rooms Hotel with an iconic and marked identity, which highlights the NoHo Lifestyle brand and a hospitality philosophy.