BAU_Butzer Architects and Urbanism

The design for 7 at Crown Heights included the rehabilitation of a dilapidated art-deco fourplex, the reinterpretation of a condemned garage and the addition of a contextually sensitive yet distinctively contemporary triplex.

The fourplex had sat abandoned for over twenty years in one of Oklahoma City’s most pristine neighborhoods, Crown Heights. Despite the building’s ideal location and beautiful design, it was widely considered undevelopable since the cost of rehabilitation would far exceed the building’s value. This problem was overcome with the addition of a modern three-plex influenced by the scale and proportions of the existing art deco structure. The addition defines the western edge of the communal courtyard and provides the development with financial viability. To soften the transition between the 1930s four-plex and its contemporary, three-unit addition, a shared garage was reconstructed as a modern update on the original 1938 design. In order to repair the original frame of the historic four-plex, its brick frame had to be carefully disassembled and later re-built.

Through meticulous attention to craft, detail, and proportion, the new construction represents a hybrid approach to architecture that embraces seemingly incompatible dualities. It is both historic and contemporary; and at once urban and suburban. This “both/and” approach is not an ideological approach, but a matter of pure pragmatism. The development reaps the efficiencies of high density without giving up the comforts of outdoor space and privacy.