Coveting an open floor plan, the owner of two formerly traditional Upper East Side apartments hired The Open Project to oversee the challenge of combining them into one modern home. Understanding the family of six’s needs, emphasis was given to structuring the 3,700-square-foot home around family life in the digital age, with the goal of lessening children’s desire to hide in their private rooms. In this way architecture and programming serves as a central catalyst for their family’s life.

The five-bedroom home includes a large open kitchen that flows into the dining and living room, and a cavernous primary suite for relief from family sounds. Windows facing North open the space on the 11th floor, allowing the house to feel open to light and air. For the more pragmatic issues of organizing for four kids, with coats, bags, shoes, balls and bats, the entry foyer was designed like a ‘mud room’ with five vertical lockers, one for keys and mail, as well as two coat closets, one for guests and one for the parents.

The primary bedroom, an important place for parents of four, is layered with walk-in closets off the bathroom and bedroom facing the windows, with custom built-in headboard and side tables. The Open Project’s familiarity with ‘wet over dry rules’, maintenance of ‘riser walls’, and the banging steam pipes served instrumental in overcoming design challenges and figuring out the jigsaw puzzle around core elements.

Photography by Frank Oudeman