Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects is an internationally recognized, award-winning design practice known for its design excellence, extensive material research, and its commitment to the craft. The firm was founded in 1998 and is led by firm principals, Stephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner. The design studio believes that design possesses the ability to express collective values, provide pertinence, and create meaningful architecture with close attention to context, materiality, form, and sustainability.
Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects have received nine American Institute of Architecture Awards, including a National Honor Award. They have also been awarded: by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture & Design, Architizer, and honored by the Japan Institute of Architecture, among many other prestigious international design institutions.
Listed below are a few examples of the studio’s exemplary architecture and distinct designs:
1. Hanson Place Penthouse
The 3,000 square-foot penthouse, in Brooklyn, in the Williamsburg Savings Bank, is designed to take full advantage of the views and provide a flexible internal landscape within which the owner can modify the built elements to accommodate her changing needs.
The internal distribution of spaces is relatively open and highly flexible within the masonry enclosure of the apartment shell, with a distinction between the movable and the immovable elements within the apartment.
2. Tanzania Beekeepers Asali & Nyuki Sanctuary
The Tanzania Beekeepers Asali & Nyuki Sanctuary in Dodoma, Tanzania, is a beekeeping and honey extraction center place — with a strong emphasis on providing educational and vocational resources to the growing beekeeping community.
The design of the sanctuary encourages a sense of community, collaboration, and improvement through informal and formal spaces. The built form is designed in a cellular-patterned structure around courtyards, providing a framework for future extension, as well as spaces for interaction and learning.
3. Riverside Drive Penthouse
Located on Riverside Drive in New York, within a 22-story masonry building constructed in 1964, this 2,500 square-foot penthouse was created from three apartments.
The revised design opens up the shared living spaces to create a continuous flow between the foyer, living and dining rooms, the kitchen, and terrace. A cool, neutral color palette is used, which is balanced by the richness of the full heightEast-Indian Laurelwood panels that connect the living, dining, and kitchen areas.
4. Stilt City Art Center
Located on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, Stilt City will be an art community space created in an unoccupied bungalow, which had been flooded by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The design implements low-cost resilient features that will help mitigate future flood damage.
The design modifications include the replacement of hardscape with previous materials that will aid in natural drainage and reduce erosion, installation of mechanical equipment above the first story, and use of marine-grade plywood that provides protection against mold and water damage. The exterior cladding is also intended to change and evolve over time with contributions from the artists in residence so that the building itself will become an installation.
5. Tribeca Residence
Located in a Neo-Romanesque building in Manhattan’s historic Tribeca West district, the renovation of this 2,600-square-foot apartment combines two units to create a spacious, flexible, and sophisticated space for a young family with small children.
The design takes advantage of the lofty ceilings and abundant natural light from large windows, yet also creates distinct rooms that feel separate and individual from one another, while still remaining part of the whole. Each space has a unique character, with a cohesive but layered design, with bold patterns and textures, and intensive attention to materiality.
6. Morgane Le Fay SoHo
Located on Broome Street, in New York, this 2,037 square-foot site underwent a renovation and realizes a design that preserves and highlights the existing architectural features of the landmarked building, constructed in 1900.
The open plan design remains true to Morgane Le Fay’s signature modest aesthetic and utilizes the abundance of natural light afforded by large storefront windows and rear skylight. The minimal interiors and quality of light create an understated and intimate atmosphere.
7. Monument to Foot Soldiers
The Monument to Foot Soldiers was proposed as part of a national design competition held to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Birmingham Civil Rights Campaign. It is a monument meant to honor the legacy of the contributions and sacrifices made by unnamed activists in the civil rights struggle and to celebrate the ultimate triumph of unity and the human spirit.
Located in Kelly Ingram Park, in downtown Birmingham, the monument created by a stainless steel lattice structure in-filled with glass and metal panels of varying textures and opacities takes a cylindrical form. The interior of the steel structure has text gathered from freedom songs that made ordinary men, women, and children stand together in the struggle.
8. Marc Jacobs Beauty
Marc Jacobs Beauty opened a freestanding, jewel-like 425-square foot storefront at 385 Bleecker Street in Manhattan’s West Village. The design features polished stainless steel and glass vitrines, mirrored walls, polished black granite beauty counter with built-in makeup stations, and custom chandelier by KacperDolatowski.
The corner storefront features large windows and mirrored surfaces, creating a vast sense of space that serves as a dramatic backdrop for the newly designed fixtures and cosmetics collection. Sitting atop a white Thassos floor, the focal point of the design is a large custom granite table with a scalloped-edge detail that contains makeup consultation stations and freestanding stainless steel mirrors.
9. Greenwich Village Townhouse
This townhouse renovation in New York City’s Greenwich Village updates a twelve-foot wide home. The scope of work spans all four floors but focuses heavily on the house’s dated garden level.
The design responded to the client’s eclectic style and fit the needs of a growing family. Mechanical and electrical upgrades were made throughout the house to accommodate the modern demands of the client.
10. Tunnel (Re)Visions
In an effort to improvise the amalgamation of the pedestrian into the Holland Tunnel in downtown Manhattan, this proposal accepts the efficient system of the machine and works alongside it in an Olmsted-like manner. This interpretation of an ‘EmeraldNecklace’ would provide a more beautiful connection to nature that is not in isolation, but in continuation.
A pedestrian band loops through the site, bridging desired physical connections and binding existing green infrastructures with the ones proposed. The project aims to reimagine the public plaza and promenade, along with offering a better quality of life to an area known for public plaza and promenade, along with offering a better quality of life to an area known for its poor air quality and inaccessibility.
11. TōrōIshi Ku
This 2,800-square-foot, three-story building for Marc Jacobs, is located off Omotesando Street in Tokyo’s famous Aoyama shopping district. It houses two main sales floors as well as a smaller sales area and storage room below grade.
The design adheres to strict local codes and the surrounding context of world-renowned architecture and a quiet residential neighborhood. The facade is divided into three parts: a minimalist open ground floor, a dark and heavy middle floor, and lastly, a custom perforated paneled beacon.
12. Open Fort 400
Open Fort 400, a competition entry, seeks to reaffirm the cultural connection between Amsterdam and New York City that was created by Henry Hudson 400 years ago. The design wishes to create a contemporary place of exchange between New York and Amsterdam in a post-industrial neighborhood of Amsterdam North.
The proposal for Open Fort responds to New York City’s place as a global center for multi-media platforms. The programmatic core is a television studio that delivers prominent New York programs to Amsterdam and throughout the world.
13. SoHo Loft
The project is a 2,000-square foot apartment located in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. The design harmonizes the client’s urge to have open space with the need for privacy and the utilization of natural light.
The revisions accommodate separate ‘his and hers’ seating areas in a single living space with open access to new kitchen and dining areas along with a library, whereas, the design of the master bedroom maximizes the natural light from the east-facing windows.
14. West Cork Arts Center
Conceived as a showcase for performing and visual arts, as well as a home for educational and community programs, in Skibbereen, Ireland, this unbuilt project is a five-story arts center designed to transform Skibbereen’s commercial district into the heart of the arts community in West Cork.
The building is divided primarily into two volumes — a solid, opaque volume to the West, and a transparent glass volume to the East that reveals the building’s interior activities. The building is designed to be energy efficient and incorporates passive solar systems for heat collection, retention, and ventilation. The different activities are arranged vertically from the most public to most private — with performance space and galleries giving way to workshops and private artist studios.
15. Provincetown Residence
The historic 6,000 square-foot home, dating back to the 1870s, is located in the West End of Provincetown. Originally meant to be a renovation project, the house underwent major reconstruction when it was discovered that the original structure was built without an adequate foundation.
The reconstruction of the main volume, with its historic facade facing the street, is clad in painted clapboard with double-hung cape windows, and the existing, secondary volumes were re-clad with white cedar shingles. Also, the distribution, scale, and character of the interior rooms correspond to the architectural tone, fenestration, and structure of the external volumes.
