The Landmarks Preservation Commission today approved a certificate of appropriateness for a new residential co-operative building with 8 units at 372 Lafayette Street in NoHo.

The 6-story building is distinguished by its red-metal structural frame that houses shipping container boxes.

David Wallance is the architect and the developer is Global Building Modules. Mr. Wallace told CityRealty.com after the hearing that the use of the standardized containers in housing has been employed in England, but not here.

The building, which is on the southwest corner of Great Jones Street, will replace a one-story garage that was built in 1933.

Commissioner Stephen Brynes remarked at the hearing that the design reminded him of Marcel Breuer, the architect of the Whitney Museum of American Art on Madison Avenue, and Brutalism, adding that he found it "very interesting and a rich composition."

The broad facade has very large windows and there are small recessed balconies on Great Jones Street.

In December 14, 2004 testimony on the project before the commission, Lisa Kersavage, Kress/RFR Fellow for Historic Preservation of the Municipal Art Society noted that "The proposed building introduces a new building material to the district (and the city) and we believe a case can be made that the shipping containers are an appropriate architectural idiom in this historic district."

"The use of the shipping containers has aesthetic and historical analogies to the district's cast-iron architecture. Both are mass-produced and pre-fabricated and the repetitive bays of the shipping containers are similar to the repeating arches and panel of Italianate building. In overreaching terms, this is an appropriate material and building construction to introduce into this manufacturing district," she continued.

The civic organization at that time objecting to the blue cladding then planned for the building, recommending the use of "brick red containers could help mediate between this new and very modern material and the historic buildings." "It is heartening to see a building that adaptively uses what is normally an industrial cast-off," Ms. Kersavage concluded.