Designed for architect Peter Eisenman and his family, the Eisenman/Davidson Apartment, combines three units to create in a highly tailored residential space gazing over lower Manhattan.

Three bedroom areas were planned to revolve around the kitchen, living space, and a library. By establishing a series of 3 datums as soffit heights, and manipulating their relationship between the floor and ceiling plates, a new spatial ordering system emerges. This spatial move acts to frame the horizon by compressing certain interior space. These soffits begin to describe the circulation patterns and spatial adjacencies between the unique living spaces.

The home’s interior has been constructed around a series of three points of reference that create three distinct ceiling heights. The lowest ceiling height marks out circulation space and hides mechanical systems. The variance modulates the apartment’s interior volumes, threading movement through low spaces and allowing the perimeter to explode towards the spectacular urban scene that spreads from its windows. Within the apartment, rooms are organized in an overlapping configuration of public and private zones, each L-shaped in plan, as continuous maple flooring and white painted walls unify spaces.

From the entry, the home opens laterally to a study on one side and a living area on the other. Beyond these rooms are a guest closet and bathroom, and at the link between public and private spaces, an eat-in kitchen where white lacquer cabinetry and peitra cardosa granite bench tops have been installed. A rolling breakfast table allows easy access to a built-in bench as well as rolling into the living area to extend the library table for dinner parties. Beyond the kitchen is the private zone containing three bedrooms. The master bedroom faces north and is lined with books and a collection of miniature buildings on shelving above the built-in bed.

Artwork and books become as much a part of the home as its design, with the architects briefed to provide plenty of space for the couple’s extensive and varied collection. Unique and distinct, collected as treasures of experience and travel, the pieces give the Eisenman home the perfect flair and individual touch.