The proposed facade design for the renovation of 163 Bleecker Street was driven primarily by the existing building’s form, and its unique size and proportion as it relates to its neighborhood context.  As a new music venue, the architecture was also inspired historically by the periods of beatnik and bohemian rediscovery of the Village, when counter-culture ideologies of art, politics, lifestyle, and music injected a new sense of creativity, color, and energy into the fabric of the neighborhood.

Tucked between two taller buildings (10 stories and 6 stories), 163 Bleecker’s three-story structure is in itself an oddity in form, dwarfed by its immediate neighbors and the general scale of the neighborhood fabric.  The architectural treatment of the proposed facade is intended to celebrate this unique scale, and to give this small building a sense of place among the adjacent high-rises, while still connecting back to the rich and vibrant history of the South Village Historic District and contributing meaningfully to the dynamic fabric of the Village streetscape.