Experience design agency HUSH has partnered with luxury real estate developer Toll Brothers City Living, the urban development division of Toll Brothers, Inc., the nation’s leading builder of luxury homes, and Gemdale Properties and Investments, to craft an engaging visual installation that reinforces the distinctive, prismatic design and vibrant surroundings of the company’s eagerly anticipated property 121 E 22ND in New York City.
Slated for completion in Fall 2018 with sales and marketing by Toll Brothers City Living, the 18-story tower at 121 E 22nd Street marks the first residential building in Manhattan designed by the OMA (Office of Metropolitan Architecture), the world-renowned firm founded by Rem Koolhaas. Designed by partner Shohei Shigematsu, the property celebrates Shigematsu’s decade-long tenure directing OMA New York.
Based on a design language developed by the building’s architects at OMA, and in collaboration with Toll’s branding agency Brooklyn United, HUSH designed a bold visual expression for 121 E 22ND’s sales gallery. The goal is to provide potential buyers with an immersive introduction to the building’s design and its location at the nexus of two sought-after neighborhoods, Gramercy and the Flatiron District. “Because the design language is so strong, we decided to leverage it in several other digital and visual ways so that buyers would perceive everything through its lens,” HUSH Founding Partner/Creative Leader David Schwarz explains. “The structure of the installation, the visual VFX elements, and the live action footage were merged within this angular design iconography to deliver a powerful visual statement.”
HUSH’s installation required the design agency to employ several complex techniques which allows the experience to feel simple and bold. Producing a shoot across multiple locations generated a sizeable amount of 6K footage. Each shot was meticulously composed to work within the installation’s angular symmetrical form. To further express the building’s iconography, the agency created a prismatic refraction effect using the building’s exact geometry. “In a quick glance, or a longer engagement, the piece aligns buyers with the power of architecture in a way impossible to do with only models, plans, and renderings,” Schwarz says. “We helped merge design language and environment in a way that will inspire potential buyers with a vision of their future.”
According to Schwarz, HUSH was given plenty of creative freedom to create an artistic expression flexible enough to speak to any potential buyer’s interests, and serving as both a focal point and a backdrop. “Toll was incredibly open to our ideas and gave us a lot of room to play – once they saw that we had truly consumed all the information about the building, its urban context, the architect and their process,” he explains.
The project further exemplifies HUSH’s experiential design prowess in luxury architecture and real estate endeavors, following such efforts with the equally alluring interactive gallery for real estate developer Related, promoting Zaha Hadid’s first New York City residential property.
Sales Center Location:
45 E 20th St
11th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Credits:
Experience Design Agency: HUSH
David Schwarz , Partner
Erik Karasyk, Partner
Dan Rodriguez, Director of Engagement
Dev Harlan, Design Director
David Lehman, Art Director
Travis Craw, Producer
Nicki Ishmael, Associate Producer
Adam Kruckenberg, Systems Designer
Caleb Seppala, Director of Photography
Mike Senften, 3D Animation / VFX
Ish Nazmim, Compositor
Dan Phakos, Editor
Yi Lai, Jr. Designer
Fengyi Zhu, Jr. Developer
Kelvin Kottke, Jr. Designer
Digital Agency: Brooklyn United
About HUSH:
HUSH is a concept-driven design firm. We integrate digital technology and physical environments to create powerful brand experiences for our client’s customers, employees and partners.
About Toll Brothers City Living:
Toll Brothers City Living® is the urban development division of Toll Brothers, Inc., the nation’s leading builder of luxury homes. Toll Brothers City Living brings the same quality, value, and service that luxury home buyers throughout the country have become familiar with, to some of the most dynamic urban markets in the country including New York City; Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Greater Washington, D.C. metro area. Toll Brothers proudly supports the communities in which it builds; among other philanthropic pursuits, the Company now sponsors the Toll Brothers – Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, bringing opera to neighborhoods throughout the world. To learn more about Toll Brothers City Living and its properties, visit TollBrothersCityLiving.com.