The building’s exterior is both minimalist poetry and playful urbanity. It’s the urban mullet: business in the front; party in the back. The street façade is a studied, tailored composition of punched openings within an elegant and unexpected field of standing seam copper, standing boldly against its brick brethren as a metaphor for aging gracefully – an example of how we can allow our own patinas to evolve and show our true selves, beautifully and honestly. We were able to convince NYC HPD, the city’s governing housing agency, that we could squeeze a copper façade into the tight budget, and make it pay off.

AiF has pushed the programming of shared, communal spaces meant to encourage social activities among the residents with a ground floor lobby that contains a community café, a lending library, a community demo kitchen for classes and demonstrations, and a multi-purpose community room. The entry lobby was conceived as a library/co-working space, where residents can check out books and current periodicals, encouraging chance encounters and forging new rituals and relationships. Shared activity rooms can function for cooking classes, shared meals, yoga, and dance classes.