14-14 Central Avenue
Location: Queens, NY
Client: Kingspoint Heights
Type: Mixed-Use & Affordable Housing
Size: 192,939 SF
Units: 142
This mixed-use development contains affordable apartments, a landscaped outdoor terrace for residents, a sanctuary, offices and meeting rooms for the Far Rockaway Community Church, as well as a commercial laundromat, a Universal Pre-K, and space for an after-school youth vocational training program with media studios and a commercial training kitchen.
With an eye toward expanding and upgrading a popular sacred building, masonry screening and pillars and a double height lobby provide a contemporary take on traditional church design elements and help to call out the location of the religious space.
The community minded design also varies the exterior materials including dark and lightly colored masonry to break the massing and reduce the perceived bulk. This helps the development sit comfortably amongst lower-scale buildings.
Photos by Alexander Severin.