Our studio was approached by an established dental practice to design their second Manhattan office to accommodate a growing clientele and in parallel with their recent re-branding. The new space, located on the ground floor of a beautifully maintained 1900 brick building, came with the structure’s original soaring cast iron columns and uninterrupted South West exposure. 

The quality of natural daylight in the raw space became both a starting point in the design process and a priority to preserve for both the user experience and energy performance. The project’s material and spatial concepts were further developed by merging the building’s inherent structural expression and solar orientation with the dental practice’s brand ‘narrative’ and core values of honesty, empathy, and serene professionalism. 

The primary spatial concept involves locating treatment rooms along the existing South and West windows, and the use of translucent moveable partitions at the entranceways to extend natural daylight throughout the space while ensuring privacy when needed. The primary material concept integrates a neutral and natural palette that prioritizes the pure expression of a material (wood as wood, concrete as concrete) and celebrates the building's original structural elements. 

The resulting office space is one of lightness and calm, past and present.