text: raul barreneche photography: eric laignel

248 INTERIOR DESIGN SEPT.17

idx170901_inc04.indd 248 9/14/17 5:36 PM

 made in brooklyn
An eco playground in Brooklyn Bridge
Park, INC’s 1 Hotel celebrates the
spirit of the borough

SEPT.17 INTERIOR DESIGN 249

idx170901_inc04.indd 249 9/15/17 11:31 AM

 Previous spread: At 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge Park by INC Architecture
& Design, the lobby’s plant wall features ferns and vines.
Top: In the lobby, a pair of Marmol Radziner chairs face a cocktail
table that Uhuru Design custom-made with beams reclaimed from
the nearby Domino Sugar refinery. Bottom: Woven flax rope
composes Christien Meindertsma’s ottomans, found in the
pre-function area for the ballroom.
Opposite top, from left: Freegums, aka Alvaro Ilizarbe, painted
the acrylic mural in a stairwell. Behind the granite reception desk
rises Jarrod Beck’s sculpture in rubber repurposed from a store
destroyed by a tornado. Opposite bottom: Marvel Architects
designed the 10-story mixed-use building.

250 INTERIOR DESIGN SEPT.17

idx170901_inc04.indd 250 9/14/17 5:37 PM

 Think globally. Design locally. This twist on the well-known activist rallying
cry is a fitting mantra for the latest property in the eco-forward, nature-centric
1 Hotel brand launched by Interior Design Hall of Fame member Barry Sternlicht,
formerly mastermind of the W hotel phenomenon and currently CEO of Starwood
Capital Group. Tapped by Sternlicht, who has chosen a different firm for each
location, INC Architecture & Design created the artfully sustainable interiors
of 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge Park, which opened on Earth Day. The job entailed
tackling such questions as: “What is sustainable luxury?” Not to mention:
“How do you evoke a Brooklyn aesthetic without that most overused of Brooklyn
design tropes, the Edison bulb?”
First, the setting. Occupying a section of Brooklyn Bridge Park known as
Pier One, once a cargo wharf, a long, meandering building by Marvel Architects
houses both the 194-key hotel and a 106-unit apartment wing. The project
caused a stir a dozen years ago when plans revealed that the 10-story structure
would partially block Brooklyn Bridge views from part of the Brooklyn Heights
Promenade. On the plus side, developing the property generated essential
operating revenue for the park, one of the most expansive green spaces built
in the city in decades.
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’s wild, willowy park landscapes, 85 acres
punctuated by hillocks of salvaged granite blocks and benches crafted from
timbers rescued from the
pier’s dismantled warehouses,
was a perfect jumping-off
point for 1 Hotel—Sternlicht
stipulates that there always
has to be a natural landscape
feature nearby. “We are a
brand about the power of
nature,” Starwood Capital
Group senior vice president
of design Kemper Hyers says.
Sternlicht’s concept of ho-
tels that capture the beauty
of nature, while safeguarding
the environment, already in-
cluded such basic elements

SEPT.17 INTERIOR DESIGN 251

idx170901_inc04.indd 251 9/14/17 7:25 PM

 252 INTERIOR DESIGN SEPT.17

idx170901_inc04.indd 252 9/14/17 8:22 PM

 Opposite: The lobby’s staircase, built from hot-rolled, oiled steel
and reclaimed oak, wraps around an obsidian rock sculpture by
Rachel Mica Weiss.
Top: Reclaimed barn-wood forms a canopy in the presidential
suite’s master bedroom. Center: Board-formed concrete lines
a guest corridor. Bottom: A bench by Taylor Forrest sits in the
penthouse private lounge.

as hemp-blend mattresses, organic cotton sheets, and key cards made of

recycled wood as well as earth-friendly cleaning products, all previously
implemented at properties just off Central Park, in Midtown, and in Miami
Beach. The brand’s overarching design guidelines offered additional direction.
Wood and stone, often reclaimed, feature prominently. So do live eco moments,
aka green walls and potted plants.
For additional inspiration, INC looked to the site’s previous incarnation.
“Context is everything,” partner and managing and creative director Adam
Rolston says. “Here, we tried to relate to the history of the wharf that used
to exist and the natural landscape that has been reconstituted in the park.”
A rusticated wall in the lobby is granite from the original quarry that supplied
stone for the Brooklyn Bridge.
Wooden boards, reclaimed from local water towers, clad certain walls and
ceilings and make taking the elevator reminiscent of riding inside a shipping
crate. Rugs based on the mottled patterns of rusty ship hulls and slipcovers
that recall ribbed packing blankets are other riffs on industrial luxury.
Partner and studio director Gabriel Benroth notes, “The spaces are layered,
which imparts a sense of history, as if the hotel were aggregated and
modified over time.”
Speaking of modification, Hurricane Sandy hit early in the hotel’s construction,
stopping progress and requiring that the ground level be raised 36 inches. “Quite
literally, this became a story for the hotel,” Hyers continues. “The employee café
is named 36, and murals in the suites have a symbolic 36-inch datum line. The
realities of global warming live here.”
Rolston, Benroth, and partner and field director Drew Stewart did a deep dive
into the “Brooklyn style” of popular imagination—everything reclaimed, repur-
posed, DIY—to chart a new sensibility that’s still true to the borough’s creative
ethos. Call it Brooklyn 2.0. “What we retained was the honest interpretation
of materiality and forms that express how things are put together,” Rolston
explains, adding that Inc engaged with the local maker community to “authen-
tically tie the project to place. People expect that they will connect to the culture
of a particular city through their hotel experience. It’s just a given now.”
INC collaborated with a number of design firms and artisan workshops based
in four of New York’s five boroughs. “Design doesn’t stop at our studio door,”
Stewart says. From Brooklyn, for example, Uhuru Design turned beams from
Domino Sugar into cocktail tables for the lobby, while Bien Hecho made tops
SEPT.17 INTERIOR DESIGN 253

idx170901_inc04.indd 253 9/14/17 8:08 PM

 Top, from left: Wood cladding the elevators is reclaimed from
local water towers. A restroom’s sinks are Vermont marble cut
by water jet. Center, from left: In the presidential suite hangs
a custom reading lamp with a leather shade. Danielle Trofe
grew mushroom mycelium into shades for pendant domes in
the living area. Bottom, from left: Vermont marble reappears
for a standard guest room’s shower. Acrylic-polyester covers
the presidential suite’s daybed.
Opposite: A hammock by Tracie Herrtage hangs in a one-
bedroom suite.

254 INTERIOR DESIGN SEPT.17

idx170901_inc04.indd 254 9/14/17 8:09 PM

 SEPT.17 INTERIOR DESIGN 255

idx170901_inc04.indd 255 9/14/17 8:12 PM

 for dining tables out of wood
from New York Botanical
Garden trees that fell during
Hurricane Sandy. Fernando
Mastrangelo Studio, rep­
resenting Queens, used a
strangely caviarlike silica
to form a table that greets
patrons on their way to the
hard-to-get-into rooftop bar.
The work of local artists
also figures into the picture. Most notable is a sculpture comprising 6,000
pounds of obsidian rocks tucked into the bend of the lobby’s staircase, its
blackened-steel wire calling to mind the suspension cables of the Brooklyn
Bridge. Almost entirely missing throughout the hotel, on the other hand, are
those Edison bulbs. You’ll find them in only a handful of sconces in the lobby.

PROJECT TEAM
TYLER KLECK; LOUISA REVITTE; MEGAN MC GING; RILEY MILLER: INC ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN. LIGHT­
ING WORKSHOP: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. HARRISON GREEN: INTERIOR LANDSCAPING CONSULTANT.
D E SIMONE: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. LANGAN ENGINEERING & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES: CIVIL
ENGINEER. DAGHER ENGINEERING: MEP. JO-VIN: DRAPERY WORKSHOP. GER ARCHITECTURAL MANU­
FACTURING: WOODWORK. GENESIS HOSPITALITY CORPORATION: WOODWORK, METALWORK. SUPERIOR
METAL & WOODWORK: METALWORK. DENTON STONEWORKS; YALE TILE & STONE: STONEWORK. GET
REAL SURFACES: PLASTERWORK, CONCRETE CONTRACTOR. CALIPER STUDIO: STAIR CONTRACTOR. HUDSON
MERIDIAN CONSTRUCTION GROUP: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.
PRODUCT SOURCES
FROM FRONT CASAMIDY: GRAY SOFA (LOBBY). JUSTIN DAVID TEXTILES: SOFA FABRIC. JAMIE STERN:
SOFA UPHOLSTERY. ERIC SLAYTON: CONCRETE TABLE. SÉRÉNITÉ LUXURY MONACO: CUSTOM RUG. MADE
GOODS: STOOLS (LOBBY, PRE-FUNCTION, SUITES). LUKAS LIGHTING: CUSTOM SPOTLIGHTS (LOBBY),
CUSTOM SCONCES (PRE-FUNCTION), CUSTOM CHANDELIER (LOUNGE), CUSTOM READING LAMP (SUITE).
ARCHIPELAGO DESIGNS: CUSTOM PILLOWS (LOBBY, LOUNGE), CUSTOM THROWS, HAMMOCK COVER (SUITES).
MARMOL RADZINER FURNITURE: WOOD CHAIRS (LOBBY). CASSINA: UPHOLSTERED CHAIRS. HB ARCHI­
TECTURAL LIGHTING: CUSTOM PENDANT FIXTURES. AELFIE: RUG (PRE-FUNCTION). THOMAS EYCK: OTTO­
MANS (PRE-FUNCTION, SUITE). OFF-CENTRE: PENDANT FIXTURES (RECEPTION). TAI PING CARPET: CUSTOM
RUGS (SUITE, LOUNGE). GARZA MARFA: SHELL CHAIRS (SUITE). METRO WALLCOVERINGS: CUSTOM WALL
COVERING (SUITES). DESIGN DETAILS: SHEER FABRIC. DURKAN: CUSTOM CARPET (HALL). TOWN & COUNTRY
LUXURY FIREPLACES: FIREPLACE (LOUNGE). ANDRIANNA SHAMARIS: TABLES. TAYLOR FORREST: BENCH.
DEMAR LEATHER COMPANY: CHAIR UPHOLSTERY. TIGER LEATHER: SOFA UPHOLSTERY (LOUNGE, SUITE),
LAMPSHADE MATERIAL (SUITES).
WALTZING MATILDA: FLOOR TILE
(ELEVATOR). ADVANCED MODERN
TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION: SINK
FITTINGS (RESTROOM). SÉURA: CUSTOM
MIRRORS. ROBERT FRANCO: CUSTOM
LAMPSHADES (SUITES). DANIELLE
TROFE: PENDANT DOMES (SUITE).
BARBER LUMBER SALES: SHOWER
CADDY (GUEST ROOM). WATERMARK
DESIGNS: SHOWER FITTINGS (GUEST
ROOM, SUITE), TUB FITTINGS (SUITE).
DESIGNTEX: DAYBED FABRIC (SUITE).
LE BEANOCK: HAMMOCK. CB2: SIDE
CHAIR. OPUZEN: ARMCHAIR FABRIC.
STONE FOREST: TUB. THROUGHOUT
BENCH­M ARK FURNITURE MANUFACTUR­
ING; BIEN HECHO; COSTANTINI DESIGN;
KREOO; LOUIS INTERIORS; STREET­
WOOD; UHURU DESIGN: CUSTOM
FURNITURE. AUTHENTIC RECLAIMED
FLOORING: FLOORBOARDS. HUDSON
COMPANY: FLOORBOARDS, WALL BOARDS,
WALL TILE.

256 INTERIOR DESIGN SEPT.17

idx170901_inc04.indd 256 9/15/17 11:56 AM

 Opposite top, from left: A staircase ascends to the rooftop bar. Dried
mushrooms and preserved moss compose Aquarela Sabol’s wall
sculpture. Opposite bottom: Bluestone pavers surround the pool.
Top: Floor planks in the presidential suite are engineered reclaimed
pine. Bottom: Likewise reclaimed, slate tiles the wall behind the
master bathroom’s granite tub.

interiordesign.net/inc17 for a video walk-through of the hotel

SEPT.17 INTERIOR DESIGN 257

idx170901_inc04.indd 257 9/14/17 8:16 PM

Copyright of Interior Design is the property of Interior Design Media Group LLC and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.