The headquarters building for Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) Studio, a fashion design company, is a new, six-story structure built behind two landmarked facades in New York City`s Meatpacking District. The building houses the company`s flagship store, a flexible showroom/event space, design and administrative offices for a 150-person staff, an executive suite, and a private penthouse apartment. The project`s diverse program is unified through a singular iconic gesture: a stairway that collects and distributes light from the roof through to the deepest interior parts of the building. This shaft of light is conceived of as an inhabitable and connective “stairdelier” – a cross between stair and chandelier – that cuts diagonally up from the ground floor to the “diamond”, a faceted glass penthouse at the roof. The building is within the Gansevoort Market Historic District and the DVF Studio Headquarters was hailed by the New York`s Landmarks Preservation Commission as a “new model of adaptive reuse for the city.” Instead of hiding new elements behind the historic facades, the project is conceived of as a dialogue between contemporary materials and the renovated elements.
