Architect Forms New NY Firm, Works on Multifamily
Martin Kapell, until recently a partner at WASA/Studio A, has formed a new architecture firm in Hudson Square in Lower Manhattan: think! architecture and design.
By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
New York—Martin Kapell, until recently a partner at WASA/Studio A, has formed a new architecture firm in Hudson Square in Lower Manhattan: think! architecture and design. Though the firm will practice general architecture, it’s currently designing multifamily residential projects in New York.
Among the new firm’s current designs are 267 Rogers Ave., a 165-unit rental building in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and 421 Kent Ave., an ultra-high-end, 216-unit condo project in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, done in collaboration with WASA/Studio A. think! architecture is also building on Kapell’s experience in the design of performance spaces with current projects at La Mama, an off-Broadway theater company, and the recently completed master plan for Symphony Space, a performing arts center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
421 Kent Ave., which is located on a full city block, will be a low-rise community for Xinyuan Real Estate Co. Ltd., a Chinese-owned real estate company. The building will be seven stories and comprise units that vary from one-bedroom to four-bedrooms with rooftop garden terraces and individual pools.
The community wraps around a landscaped interior courtyard with parking below and various other community functions occupying the ground floor. The scale, massing and materials are being chosen to complement the industrial architectural legacy of the Williamsburg waterfront district, according to the architect. Separately, 267 Rogers Ave. will be on the site currently occupied by part of the St. Ignatius Catholic Church complex.
Kapell has been working as an architect in New York since the early 1980s, first as a partner at Kapell & Kostow Architects, then in collaboration with Charles Tannhauser and Jack Esterson at TEK. For the last eight years, he’s been the senior design partner at WASA/Studio A, a firm with which he still maintains a professional relationship.
In addition, the newly formed think! architecture has established an ongoing joint venture with the Spector Group, think!/Spector, to pursue larger projects by combining think!’s and Spector’s respective capabilities. The two firms are already working together on a number of projects.
