Meet New Affiliates, a dynamic New York studio founded by Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb, who joined forces in 2016 to found this award-winning and fast-emerging New York practice. The pair have been prolific, but our pick of their projects is the soothingly angular Tunbridge Winter Cabin in Vermont.
Who: New Affiliates
Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb founded New Affiliates in 2016 – and this emerging New York studio, has been scooping awards and recognitions ever since. The Architectural League Prize, awarded by the Architectural League of New York, and the New Practices New York Award, by the American Institute of Architects, are just two of the studio’s growing list of accolades; but it is New Affiliates’ work that really makes it stand out. The pair jumped into architectural production head first, completing a slew of temporary and permanent projects since their firm's foundation.
Relationships, they explain, are a key part of their approach and how they intepret and produce architecture. ‘We like to make things we find beautiful, but we like to make them in larger chains of production; to work between business-as-usual and its implications, service and its byproducts. The projects brush against deeper issues – on sustainability, on public space, on material research – but we’re forever driven by acts of orchestration: to realign interests and find new sets of values both within the profession and the world the profession serves,' they say. Architecture is a ‘cultural phenomenon’, motivating them to explore the world, they conclude.
Their portfolio includes a wide variety of commissions. There have been ground-up, entirely new projects (such as the Tunbridge Winter Cabin, see below) and interiors projects (their Bed-Stuy Loft apartment design comes to mind), but also exhibitions and installations for prestigious institutions such as the New York's Jewish Museum, the Shed, and the Canadian Center for Architecture. And they've only just begun.
What: Tunbridge Winter Cabin
Set within the leafy hills of Vermont, Tunbridge Winter Cabin was commissioned by a private client as an idyllic winter retreat and artists' studio. Occupying some 1,250 sq ft, the project is generous but maintains a strong cabin-style identity, clad in a distinctive dark timber skin and featuring sharp, pitched roofs that echo traditional structures in this part of the world. The design by New Affiliates is inspired by ‘the area’s strange aggregate structures, in which barns, houses and sheds all grow on and around each other as if clustering for warmth'.
Still, designed as two identical squares that in plan meet at a corner, the structure maintains a strong, contemporary sensibility. Slight misalignments and minor asymmetries add quirkiness and personality to the whole, while minimalist white interiors starkly contrast with the grey timber plank exterior, creating a dialogue betweek inside and outside.
The double-height studio space occupies one wing of the house, while on the other side, a ground-floor living space is topped by a bedroom above. The high, pitched ceiling becomes a central architectural feature inside and leads out to a decked terrace set between the two wings. Large-scale window walls frame the picturesque views of the adjacent Green Mountains. Meanwhile, a second, larger home on the same estate is currently in the works to complement this one, also designed by New Affiliates.
Why: Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2021
Conceived in 2000 as our index of emerging architectural talent, the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory is our magazine’s annual listing of promising practices from across the globe. The project has, over the years, spanned styles and continents, while always championing the best and most exciting young studios and showcasing inspiring work with an emphasis on the residential realm. Now including more than 500 alumni and counting, the Architects’ Directory is back for its 21st edition. Join us as we launch this year’s survey – 20 young studios, from Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the USA, and the UK, with plenty of promise, ideas and exciting architecture.
INFORMATION
-
Cocktail hour with Stanley TucciWallpaper* catches up with the consummate epicurean to discuss his culinary no-gos, Tucci-esque travel habits and how to make the perfect martini
-
28 Years Later, is Danny Boyle finding humanity in a dystopian world?Is that a touch of positivity we see in director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland's 28 Years Later?
-
Jenny Saville’s major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is raw, powerful and sublimeFifty works, from the course of the artist’s career, are brought together for ‘Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting’ in London
-
A New Zealand house on a rugged beach exemplifies architect Tom Kundig's approach in rich, yet understated luxuryThis coastal home, featured in 'Tom Kundig: Complete Houses', a new book launch in the autumn by Monacelli Press, is a perfect example of its author's approach to understated luxury. We spoke to Tom Kundig, the architect behind it
-
Tour architect Paul Schweikher’s house, a Chicago midcentury masterpieceNow hidden in the Chicago suburbs, architect Paul Schweikher's former home and studio is an understated midcentury masterpiece; we explore it, revisiting a story from the Wallpaper* archives, first published in April 2009
-
The world of Bart Prince, where architecture is born from the inside outFor the Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, function trumps form, and all building starts from the inside out; we revisit a profile from the Wallpaper* archive, first published in April 2009
-
Is embracing nature the key to a more fire-resilient Los Angeles? These landscape architects think soFor some, an executive order issued by California governor Gavin Newsom does little to address the complexities of living within an urban-wildland interface
-
Hop on this Fire Island Pines tour, marking Pride Month and the start of the summerA Fire Island Pines tour through the work of architecture studio BOND is hosted by The American Institute of Architects New York in celebration of Pride Month; join the fun
-
A Laurel Canyon house shows off its midcentury architecture bonesWe step inside a refreshed modernist Laurel Canyon house, the family home of Annie Ritz and Daniel Rabin of And And And Studio
-
A refreshed Rockefeller Wing reopens with a bang at The Met in New YorkThe Met's Michael C Rockefeller Wing gets a refresh by Kulapat Yantrasast's WHY Architecture, bringing light, air and impact to the galleries devoted to arts from Africa, Oceania and the Ancient Americas
-
A Fire Island house for two sisters reimagines the beach home typologyCoughlin Scheel Architects’ Fire Island house is an exploration of an extended family retreat for the 21st century
