Selected Works by Ryan Fagrie by ryanfagrie

Ryan Fagrie

Selected Works

p. 4 Flatiron Penthouse

p. 12 Washington House

p. 20 Wellness Center

p. 32 Custom Furniture

p. 36 Warehouse Conversion

p. 42 Olive Oil Center

Flatiron Penthouse

New York, New York

A full-floor penthouse apartment designed for hosting, this 4600-square-foot residence was an introductory opportunity to navigate project management and design development across stages of completion. Satisfying the client’s mature sensibilities meant creating a space that balanced a subdued elegance with moments of indulgence and whimsy. With panoramic views and incredible sightlines, this was not the project for flashy interiors. Instead, there is a reliance on distinct moments and unique detailing to simultaneously elevate the experience within the space and emphasize the view.

Intended as a place to host, the public spaces required the same attention to balancing inward and outward — providing moments of intimacy and gathering without closing guests off from the panorama. Especially true for the main hosting spaces, a constant iteration with floorplans and elevations was key in developing configurations that best maximize ‘viewing moments’ and ‘gathering moments.’ Similar to the built details of the apartment, a restrained, clean palette allows the space to have a presence while allowing occupants to feel immersed in the cityscape.

Bennett Leifer Interiors - Completed

Photography by Joshua McHugh

Flatiron Penthouse

Washington House

A late 19th-century Victorian, last renovated in the late 1980s, where the client sought to create a space that adapts his urban sensibilities to the context of a quaint upstate town. The design direction took shape by bringing the house down to the studs and relying on the expressionless state as an opportunity to give the home a ‘third life’ by completely reimagining each space. With a budget-consciousness client, careful exploration went into how small yet powerful design moves could create a more functional, charming space. Central to all

Wellness Center

Unbuilt Work

In Collaboration with James Mustillo

As an exploration of atomization, this conceptualization of a community wellness space in Taylor, Texas, challenges the traditional scale and function of recreation centers. An interest in the concept of “ruins” as a product of divergent material durabilities established a set of architectural elements organized by their respective resistance to change: ‘site,’ ‘structure,’ ‘enclosure,’ ‘program,’ ‘systems,’ and ‘stuff.’ This atomized architectural language encouraged a strategy of disintegration — from components of building assemblies to entire programmatic adjacencies — to resolve ligatures and transects more thoroughly. A distinction between structure and envelope encouraged the adoption of two separate systems.

A stone ‘container’, whose architectural integrity exists absent other elements, establishes a boundary to house more temporal components. Smaller-scaled, conditioned volumes then ‘attach’ themselves to the stone container, creating a neighborhood of spaces. The atomization of program into discrete pavilions capitalizes on the Nolli paradigm of solid and void relationships, creating opportunities to develop richer interstitial space while being responsive to the scale of the single-family neighborhood adjacent to the site. In contrast to the standard community center typology, the pulled-apart program intends to be approachable and develops a transient identity distinct from that of the building as a whole.

Ryan Fagrie

Early Sketches

Warehouse Conversion

A historic warehouse conversion for a furniture designer, this project involves an 8,000-square-foot studio space, a 2,000-square-foot private residence, 10,000 square feet of retail space, and five rental apartment units. In coordination with the client, who has unique and high-end tastes, the initial schematic designs explored cost-appropriate opportunities for creative interventions. Special attention was given to the artist’s private residence; keeping the project’s limited budget in mind, carefully considered design moves were introduced to reference the client’s imaginative taste. Playful curves, both in plan and elevation,

reference the original brick-arched doorways. A wide gallery hall runs the length of the apartment, affording opportunities to showcase the clients’ extensive collection. These more prominent gestures are combined with a series of small, deliberate details and thoughtfully selected finishes to produce a space that is affordable yet elevated. A thorough construction document set was drawn, detailed, and approved by the project engineer for permitting and execution. Several site visits during each stage of design and construction have ensured the completion of necessary corrections with consideration for the greater design objectives.

Bainbridge, Georgia

Freelance

Olive Oil Center

Unbuilt Work

In Collaboration With Ashley Skidmore

a tension between the visual expansiveness of the site and the intimate sensory experience of olive oil that has been cultivated and handed down through centuries. This tradition, understood as a generational connection, is self-contained and thus realized through an architectural object that is both of and to the site. The concrete fins diffuse into the landscape and create an ordering system that organizes the building’s spaces along a site trajectory found in the existing topography. Design Excellence Nominee

An intervention for the design of an exhibition space, greenhouse, and tasting room for olive oil in Fiesole, Italy, combines the program into a single mass articulated through a series of arched planes that presents itself as a monumental object in the landscape. Intended to evoke the presence and formal language of the nearby Roman and Etruscan ruins, the design alludes to a sense of monumentality and sanctity to the timeworn tradition of olive oil production and consumption in Italy. The architecture creates