With Ironstate Development Company’s Urby Staten Island project, “they had to go big or go home,” according to a local resident quoted in the New York Times.  This community-centric apartment complex feels like part of a grand plan with its urban garden and communal kitchen.  These unique amenities target modern urban dwellers by promoting sustainable lifestyles.

Ironstate worked with Concrete, a Dutch architecture firm, in conceptualizing the boxy, mid-rise buildings that currently advertise 571 studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments.  The first floor is primarily designed for retail space, a convenience that makes the complex feel like even more like a community.

The interior features bright colors and fun shapes, like a five-sided house motif that reoccurs over things like the entrance and the bodega inside.   Mismatched chairs and eclectic accessories around the space add to its quirky feel.

The apartments themselves focus on efficiency without losing the fun additions present in communal spaces.  The floor numbers are done to look like graffiti and each unit has a collage of different pictures compiled from around the city to denote the apartment number.  Most spaces are laid out so that the living rooms are outward facing and bedrooms are tucked into the interior, allowing residents to make the most of views. [Photography by Ewout Huibers and information courtesy of New York Times and Urby Staten Island]