Exclusive Tour of Olson Kundig’s Sleek New York City Studio

ArchitectureExclusive Tour of Olson Kundig’s Sleek New York City StudioThe AD100 firm’s brand-new Manhattan office represents a commitment to big cities in the wake of COVID-induced departures from locations such as New York City

By David Sokol

April 28, 2022

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The main attraction of the office interior is its so-called Living Room, for which a monumental coffee-height table was built to encourage gathering.All images are courtesy of Angela Hau

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When most people zig, AD100 firm Olson Kundig zags. So principal and owner Alan Maskin says of the Seattle-based design studio’s opening of an office in midtown Manhattan, which was announced this morning. Responding to COVID-era headlines “about people leaving cities in droves,” Maskin recalls, “we chose to head in the opposite direction and set up shop in New York. We believe in the future of cities and collectively hoped for their post-pandemic revitalization.”

Olson Kundig has operated a satellite workspace in New York since 2014. Yet its new digs, located in a 1923 commercial tower, represent a more enduring commitment to the Big Apple. The office accommodates 12 staffers and includes three conference spaces. The dozen workstations will be filled in part by team members permanently relocated from Seattle as well as all-new hires. Some employees and all the firm’s owners will be doing work details in New York too.

The new office will accommodate 12 staffers, a mix of employees permanently relocated from Seattle as well as all-new hires.

In a declaration of permanence, Olson Kundig treated the office as a meditation on the complementary design vocabularies of New York and the Pacific Northwest. Muscular wood elements sitting atop polished concrete floors partition the space, whose mechanical systems were kept visible. Room has also been allocated for displaying two-dimensional art and sculptures, which will be rotated through the office in an extension of The Ledge gallery concept that Olson Kundig had introduced to its headquarters in 2011. “Our intent was to bring aspects of the Pacific Northwest and its influences with us to Manhattan,” Maskin says. He oversaw the interior design with fellow principal and owner Hemanshu Parwani, Olson Kundig’s CEO. The project’s contractor, Dowbuilt, is a longtime Olson Kundig partner that also originated in Seattle.

Within the center of the space is a 144-square-foot table divided into 6-foot-square and 800-pound quadrants that can be wheeled in and out of various configurations. 

The main attraction of the office interior is its so-called Living Room, for which Olson Kundig namesake Tom Kundig conceived a monumental coffee-height table that encourages gathering. Measuring 144-square-foot table in total, the table is divided into 6-foot-square and 800-pound quadrants that can be wheeled in and out of various configurations. All four quadrants were assembled from timber offcuts by British Columbia fabricator Spearhead, another of Olson Kundig’s repeat collaborators. One of the quadrants also incorporates a turntable and record collection curated by Seattle’s Sub Pop Records. “It would be like a love note from the Pacific Northwest to New York,” Kundig says of his initial vision for the centerpiece.

The new office is located in a 1923 commercial tower and represents a more enduring commitment to New York City.

“The design was really the crescendo of a conversation that Alan and I had, about our memories of gathering around a table with our teacher Astra Zarina in her home in Campo dei Fiori in Rome,” Kundig says. “She would have a pile of fantastic candles in the center of the table, and we’d all have negronis and sit in conversation together. The design is another love note, back to Astra and her table and the community that gathered around it. That spirit of collegial conversation and sharing is what we are looking to nurture in this new office space, so the table felt just right.”

To cultivate community and exchange, Olson Kundig will conduct its traditional Thursday design critiques and host regular presentations and other events in the New York office, in addition to its Ledge programming. Parwani particularly looks forward to using the space to forge relationships with New York–based designers and artists, noting, “While we have been part of the design discussion for six decades, the New York office gives us the ability to engage a global community in new and exciting ways.”

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