The Board of Standards & Appeals yesterday approved the granting of a zoning variance to permit the construction of an 11-story residential building at 482 Greenwich Street on the northwest corner at Canal Street.

Red Brick Canal LLC. of which David Slaven is the president, is the developer. It had acquired the site from Arman, the artist who recently died and had maintained an outdoor studio on an irregular, triangular-shaped lot at the address.

The site is at the edge of the historic shoreline within a high hazard flood plane and on the former site of a gas station.

The developer originally sought a floor-to-area-ratio of about 7.98 for the site, which was subsequently lowered to about 7.6.

The board, however, only approved a 6.5 F.A.R., which, according to Deirdre Carson of Greenberg Traurig, required a reduction in the height of the building and in the number of units. Ms. Carson said that the building will still be 11-stories tall, but will contain only 8 condominium apartments.

Thomas McKay and Garrett Gourlay are the architects for the project that will employ a synthetic light-colored and highly textured material for three piers, only one of which extends to the ground floor, on Canal Street, where its height will match that of an adjoining red-brick building to the west, and a glass facade with inset balconies on the east facade on Greenwich Street where the building only rises 7 stories.

At a recent hearing before the board, the discussion centered mostly on "hardship" issues and Bill McCorkin, a cost consultant, told the board that mandated acoustic insulation requires that the project's triple-glazed windows have more space between the glass. Mr. Gourlay told the board that the building will only have glazing on 40 percent of its facades. He also said that proximity to the Holland Tunnel and soil conditions will require expensive caissons and that its irregularly shaped lot also presented economic hardships to the developer. He said that the project has a "75 percent efficient floor plate" while larger sites can attain 85 percent efficiency.

Some residents of nearby buildings testified that the area "is a great market for residential projects," noting that this project has 100 feet of river views and faces a small park.

Mr. Mckay has indicated that the project would have a large-scale work by Arman, the only one in the city. It will be four-stories tall.

Arman was born as Armand Fernandez in 1928 in Nice, France. In 1947, he met Yves Klein with whom he hitchhiked in Europe. In 1951, he taught at the Bushido Kai Judo School and then served as a medical orderly in the Indo-Chinese War. Influenced by a Kurt Schwitters exhibition in 1954. he began working with stamp ink-pads, in part to critic Abstract Expressionism and in a few years was throwing ink objects at canvases. In 1958 he dropped the "d" in his name, inspired by a printer's error. He proceeded to explore the use of many different materials in her art and assemblages, including rubbish and burnt objects and sliced and smashed objects and organic garbage. In 1964 he had his first museum retrospectives at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.