In Carnegie Hill, a tony neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, prewar apartment buildings betray a grandeur and an investment in craft exceedingly rare today. So, when Michael Chen, founder of Michael K Chen Architecture (MKCA), was commissioned to renovate a 4,000-square-foot apartment in the area, he had high expectations. Unfortunately, the rich historical detailing he expected to find had been marred by a 1980s renovation.
“It felt like a Sheetrock labyrinth,” said Chen, and his firm took it upon itself to make amends. MKCA devised a pinwheel circulation system that meanders about the apartment’s central elevator core, creating clarity where there had previously
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