115 Norfolk Street

115 Norfolk rose in 2011 on a Lower East Side block that had already turned into a small catalogue of contemporary architecture. Grzywinski+Pons, the firm that resheathed the Hotel on Rivington in a pixelated mosaic of glass and zinc, designed the seven story, 24 unit condominium and its interiors for developer Lokshin and Vinbaytel, an East Village builder with two decades of work behind it at 525 East 12th Street, 229 East 2nd Street and 107 Avenue A.

The organizing idea came from Europe: the deep inner courtyard common to dense continental cities. New York lot sizes and the building code rule out a true central court, so the architects worked a provision governing narrow outer courts and let the void grow wider and deeper as it climbs, since lobby and common space are only needed at the ground. What it produces is a private interstitial outdoor space between street and residence, and the name the building carries in the directories, the Norfolk Atrium. Ceramic fritted glazing on the curtain wall holds privacy without breaking the face of the building.

Every apartment here was laid out on a wing plan, a bedroom or office to either side of a central living and kitchen volume, and 404 is a clean example of it. The 1,061 square foot home stands open at the moment as a one bedroom holding two full baths, with the second bedroom available to be put back where the plan always had it. Grzywinski+Pons paired rough aggregate with honed marble, bleached oak, granite and warm whites through the building, and the apartment keeps that reasoning intact: polished concrete ceilings, exposed concrete columns, recessed lighting, white oak floors running the length of the plan. Bosch cooking, an integrated Liebherr refrigerator and black granite counters sit behind flat cabinet fronts. Central air, a washer and dryer, city views.

Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington carries three architect led buildings in a row. Bernard Tschumi's Blue, his first residential commission and first high rise, opened at 105 Norfolk in 2007, sixteen stories of faceted blue curtain wall shaped by setback rules. nARCHITECTS finished the Switch Building at 109 Norfolk in 2006, seven stories whose floors pivot back and forth above a double height ground floor gallery. 115 Norfolk came last and is the quietest of the three from the sidewalk, giving up its argument to the court at its center. Below it sits a parking garage reached by hydraulic elevator, with a communal garden and a roof deck above.