Standard East (formerly Cooper Square Hotel)
The story of New York architecture is, in many ways, the story of the city’s complex zoning laws and formidable market demands. The Standard East Hotel (originally the Cooper Square Hotel) is a new 145-room hotel in NYC’s Bowery neighborhood.
CZS was tasked with negotiating not only the neighborhood’s cultural mosaic, but also a complex footprint involving an amalgam of existing buildings and their residual interstitial spaces. CZS squeezed the glass-and-steel tower in between the neighboring bar and tenement, allowing it to bulge outward as it rises above neighboring volumes, giving it a dynamic sculptural form. The tenement was incorporated into the composition, which mitigates the impact of the tower as perceived from the street and creates a spirited tension between old and new from the hotel’s outdoor spaces.
On the penthouse level, a single suite features 360-degree views and a terrace that wraps around three of its four sides. This 1,600-square-foot outdoor space hangs over the bar and garden.
The building is clad in an aluminum and fritted glass curtain wall, which gives the tower its milky white color. Unlike most frit patterns, the Standard East’s runs vertically to accentuate the tower’s height and to manipulate the voyeurism/exhibitionism of the hotel’s guests and neighbors.
