The Strong Place row houses are located in the historic neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Built on a previously vacant lot, the project consists of four new buildings: three, four-story, single family rowhouses, and a two-story carriage house.  The surrounding townhomes were constructed in the late 1800’s, in a broad range of architectural styles. This project gave CWB the rare opportunity to design a ground-up building in a neighborhood that has changed little in the last 100 years.

Our design objective was to integrate the new buildings into the neighborhood fabric with respect, not imitation. The materials selected allowed for both modern and traditional design gestures, and were used to marry the historical context and the streamlined modern interior. The facades were arranged using the modularity of the brick - only whole and half brick lengths were used. The traditional language of the cornices and oriel window on the street facades was balanced with a more contemporary design for the facades facing the rear gardens, which consisted of double-height glazed openings with steel lintels and architectural planters as parapets. Painted ironwork and precast brownstone elements at the street level were used both functionally and decoratively – nodding to traditional design without using traditional ornamentation.

This project won a Bronze Brick in Architecture Award and was featured in Classicist and the Marvin Architects Challenge Book of Entries.