Olympia is designed to capture the beauty of the cityscape and landscape around it, but also to contribute to that beauty. The tower steps and curves as it rises, directing the floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces on each level towards the very best vistas.
Hill West Architects, a design-driven architectural practice, are the thinkers behind the landmark geometry and precision detailing of Olympia and longstanding leaders in shaping the skyline of New York City. Building on the combined 60-year legacy experience of founding partners L. Stephen Hill and David West, Associate Viraj Hankare, alongside Senior Associate Kashif Saleem, have guided the design of Olympia’s monumental sail-shaped tower, and its substantial fan-shaped podium.
Hill West Architects, a design-driven architectural practice, are the thinkers behind the landmark geometry and precision detailing of Olympia and longstanding leaders in shaping the skyline of New York City. Building on the combined 60-year legacy experience of founding partners L. Stephen Hill and David West, Associate Viraj Hankare, alongside Senior Associate Kashif Saleem, have guided the design of Olympia’s monumental sail-shaped tower, and its substantial fan-shaped podium.
Olympia is designed to capture the beauty of the cityscape and landscape around it, but also to contribute to that beauty. The tower steps and curves as it rises, directing the floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces on each level towards the very best vistas.
"The geometry of the tower is derived from lofting and chiseling, articulating a curve in plan and a curve in elevation."
— Viraj Hankare
Hill West Architects
Workstead is a unique design studio that uses historical inquiry, artisanal heritage, and empathy for lived experience to infuse buildings and interiors with a sense of place. In the relatively brief period since prodigious Rhode Island School of Design graduates Stefanie Brechbuehler, Robert Highsmith, and Ryan Mahoney founded Workstead in 2009, the partners have earned an enviable range of commissions and wide renown. Every Workstead-designed project thoughtfully reinterprets enduring human traditions for our contemporary moment, and emanates warmth and spirit.
For 2022, the studio has been included in Architectural Digest’s AD100 list, the definitive list of the top design, decor and architecture talent.
Workstead is a unique design studio that uses historical inquiry, artisanal heritage, and empathy for lived experience to infuse buildings and interiors with a sense of place. In the relatively brief period since prodigious Rhode Island School of Design graduates Stefanie Brechbuehler, Robert Highsmith, and Ryan Mahoney founded Workstead in 2009, the partners have earned an enviable range of commissions and wide renown. Every Workstead-designed project thoughtfully reinterprets enduring human traditions for our contemporary moment, and emanates warmth and spirit.
For 2022, the studio has been included in Architectural Digest’s AD100 list, the definitive list of the top design, decor and architecture talent.
Craft as Context
Extending its reputation for carefully considered, place-based design, Workstead grounded Olympia in the story of New York Harbor with a subdued, organic palette.
The studio manifested concepts of rhythm, chamfering, and craft in its chosen materials in direct acknowledgment of DUMBO's origins in the maritime and early industrial economies. Workstead's design of Olympia's residential interiors and fixtures, as well as its amenities, draw inspiration from nature and culture—and it inspires those who behold the spaces, in turn.
“We thought about the river and the bridges. And about the sea,” says Ryan. “A word we came to was oceanic. A stereotypical ocean is blue and sparkling, but we also thought about how beautiful a storm at sea can be.”
You can see this in the texture and color of the blue-grey granite walls of the lobby, and in the mosaic of stones on the pool floor. “They’re mini-cobblestones,” says Ryan, “so they’re very DUMBO. And they’re laid out with a feeling of movement in a moiré pattern that flows almost like water.”
"We reference history very methodically with a new building like Olympia, so that it is rooted in the story of the neighborhood."
— Ryan Mahoney
Workstead
For elements such as monolithic stone kitchen islands or the powder room vanities, the chamfer—or the angled facets that you’d see in a quartz crystal or Olympia’s unique footprint—was applied, making space for your feet and opening up floorspace.
Playing off of the geometry of the building’s exterior, Workstead has carved away at interior forms, creating a harmony in beauty and function.
