The Satori, 340 Bond Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 340 Bond Street by Carter Horsley

The stunning, 4-story building at 340 Bond Street in the Carroll Gardens/Gowanus section of Brooklyn is distinguished by its very unusual façades of complex fenestration and slick materials.

The wood-like façade is smooth and streamlined and its great horizontal "mass," beneath two white "smokestacks" is in marked contrast with the recessed, narrow, black elements that further accentuate the project's "high-tech" aesthetic.

The 34-unit residential condominium was designed by Robert M. Scarano Jr., one of Brooklyn's most prolific and controversial architects in recent years. It is one of his finest compositions combining large areas of brown façades with narrow vertical interruptions of darker ones that are setback twice from the building line and extend above the brown façades that are capped with boxy, white "attics."

One of the first major projects in the city to experiment with fenestration was the UN Plaza Hotel on First Avenue at 44th Street by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates. Its experiment was to have windows and spandrels be visually inseparable with the effect that the scale of the building became very hard to decipher.

In recent years, windows have taken on much greater importance in the architectural world. Gwathmey Siegel's 400 Fifth Avenue, for example, has windows that sharply bow outwards and Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue has rectangular windows in a myriad variety of sizes. Both were completed in 2010.

This 2008 development gives no hint on the outside of its interior arrangements. Some bedrooms, for example, have four tiers of windows, not all of the same size. Many of the interiors, of course, have mezzanine levels, which helps explain some of the different window placements, but not all. The mezzanines are described in blueprints as storage areas and their square footage does not count in zoning and the pardonmeforasking.blogspot.com website has described the apartments as "faux duplexes." The website noted that "the living room have great high ceilings but the stairs connecting floors in the duplexes are dangerously steep."

Satori is a Japanese word that reportedly means "instant enlightenment."

The project's website states that it "marks an awakening of the senses" and is "a new building, fueled by nature and the simplicity it provides to create unique residences originated to enhance, not interfere with, life." "It introduces a new living experience, utilizing that are of Japanese design, layering a multitude of textures and an original conceptional façade," it continued.

The building bears something of a resemblance to the stunning contemporary building with a multi-faceted copper façade at 385 West 12th Street in the Far West Village designed by FLank Architects.

It is two blocks from the Carroll Street subway station and one block away from the Carroll Gardens Historic District. It is also 9 blocks away on Carroll Street from Prospect Park.

340 Bond St. LLC of which Jim Plotkin is a principal was the developer.