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Creators

Concrete
Architects

Architects
When the partners at Concrete describe their first principles, they begin with the assertion “our philosophy is no philosophy.” What they mean is that Concrete, a Dutch firm with fifty multi-disciplinary creatives on its team, doesn’t go in for obscure theorizing. What it does instead is pay a great deal of attention to the practice and craft of making buildings that function well. Buildings that serve a given purpose. Buildings that are aesthetically pleasing and bring people together through social interaction. Buildings that are useful, pleasurable, sustainable, and unique. In other words, buildings designed for humans that want to live well.

Concrete
Architects

Architects

When the partners at Concrete describe their first principles, they begin with the assertion “our philosophy is no philosophy.” What they mean is that Concrete, a Dutch firm with fifty multi-disciplinary creatives on its team, doesn’t go in for obscure theorizing. What it does instead is pay a great deal of attention to the practice and craft of making buildings that function well. Buildings that serve a given purpose. Buildings that are aesthetically pleasing and bring people together through social interaction. Buildings that are useful, pleasurable, sustainable, and unique. In other words, buildings designed for humans that want to live well.

A notable early Concrete commission was the first CitizenM hotel, which opened at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in 2009 and created a new hospitality paradigm by rejecting stale dualities such as “luxury” vs. “value.” Concrete did not acknowledge a contradiction between those two terms, and the firm has since gone on to design additional CitizenM hotels in Shanghai, New York, Copenhagen, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Concrete also designed Urby, the game-changing residential development from Ironstate, a partner in The West. With the personality of a boutique hotel, Urby created a community for contemporary urban citizens based on the shared experience of art, food, and entertainment.

Cbsk
Ironstate

Developers
For the developers 547 West 47th Street—a long-term partnership of CB Developers, SK Development, and Ironstate Development, operating under the collective name CBSK Ironstate—roundtable decision-making enables a bold design vision.

Cbsk
Ironstate

Developers

For the developers 547 West 47th Street—a long-term partnership of CB Developers, SK Development, and Ironstate Development, operating under the collective name CBSK Ironstate—roundtable decision-making enables a bold design vision.

“It’s not design by committee,” explains Scott Shnay, a third generation developer and partner with his father, Abe, in SK Development. “The committee selects the architect, then we trust the architect to design, the same way we trust the contractor to build, and the marketing team to sell in their respective roles.” The result is a portfolio of 15 development proects in New York, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Hudson Valley.

The other partners of CBSK Ironstate are Charles Blaichman and brothers Michael and David Barry of Ironstate. The partnership’s strength consists in being a like-minded group of family-operated companies that share multi-generational experience and a long-term vision of thriving communities.

As hands-on developers who enjoy all phases of the development process, CBSK Ironstate plans and programs projects to be logical, efficient, and attractive to a large buyer pool. The partners agree, a collaborative team process is integral in achieving quality results: they take as much pride in the execution of their developments as they do with forward-looking design outcomes.

Dutch fabricators Roord Binnenbouw, a bespoke workshop for furniture, fittings, and custom finishes, are Concrete’s essential collaborators at The West. Roord Binnenbouw’s team brings together the artisanal skills of traditional hand- craftsmanship with high-tech design fluency.
The intricate brickwork of 547 West 47th Street’s facade, an achievement in fine masonry, is the result of a year long collaboration between Concrete and StoneCycling, a Rotterdam based firm committed to the sustainable manufacture of upcycled bricks. The brick matrix itself is a proprietary mix of recovered construction debris blended with raw clay quarried in the Netherlands.