294 Cumberland Comes Together
Wow, that was quick! A month ago 294 Cumberland was barely peeking over the construction fence, now it’s close to being topped off—and it’s been bricked in the meantime. According to the rendering, this four-unit townhouse is going to be slightly taller than its neighbor. High hopes for this one? Construction at 294 Cumberland [Brownstoner]…
Wow, that was quick! A month ago 294 Cumberland was barely peeking over the construction fence, now it’s close to being topped off—and it’s been bricked in the meantime. According to the rendering, this four-unit townhouse is going to be slightly taller than its neighbor. High hopes for this one?
Construction at 294 Cumberland [Brownstoner]
Small New Townhouse Planned in Fort Greene [Brownstoner] GMAP
Another good example of why its better just to do a new building rather than copy an old one. The copy always pales in comparison. Even before the “contextual” decoration goes on, you can see (from across the street) that this will not look like an old rowhouse. DIBS is right – the brick is awful – but its not necessarily that they bought an inferior brick, its that the installation doesn’t match what’s next door – and it can’t. Those great tight joints that you see with Philadelphia face brick can’t (easily) be achieved when you have a CMU wall with wire brick ties. The brick always winds up with a fatter joint, which is why from across the street you see three times as much mortar on the new building as the old.
Small details matter (so do the large details, like having to do an at-grade entrance, which is completely out of context with a rowhouse look), and if you can’t get them right, you’re better off doing a well-designed contemporary building than a half-assed contextual building. Look at 268 Cumberland, just the other side of Lafayette.
Why can’t they line up those ***damn windows?!
***Bid half off peak comps***
Errr – this looks pretty damn similar to 267 State Street to me.
High hopes for this one?
No, I bet it deviates quite a bit from the rendering. Why haven’t the “brownstone” sills and lintels been installed properly to reflect the extension to each side of the window opening as in the rendering and as in most buildings??? Also, they could have picked a better brick.