Soho Row House Renovation
The New York City-based firm Delson or Sherman Architects assembled this duplex apartment in a Soho row house from two stacked apartments and a new rear extension. Their clients were a single mother and her daughter. "The rooms in our design begin compressed, then sequentially expand to draw you through the space," says principal architect Jeff Sherman (whose own amazing apartment we'll be spotlighting in a future issue—stay tuned!). To gain ceiling height in the back, Sherman lowered the extension’s floor, creating multiple levels for gardens: a green roof off the master bedroom, an arboreal backyard, and a sunken terrace outside the living room. Here, he takes us on a tour.

The cantilevered steps allow views from the entry all the way to the rear glass wall.The hallway doors all slide along a single track. Upstairs, a luminous ceiling (a detail borrowed from 1950’s corporate interiors) draws you up the stair.

"To keep the open space from screaming 'kitchen,' we avoided upper cabinets," says Sherman. Instead, the storage is hidden behind full-height white lacquered panels. At the sink wall, the thin stainless steel line that separates the flush anigre panels from the Ceaserstone backsplash is a recessed plug strip.