STUDIO V Architecture is an award-winning architecture and urban design firm that seeks to reimagine the 21stcentury urban condition. We specialize in transit-oriented developments and waterfront urban design at all scales, and adaptive reuse projects that repurpose historic structures for public use.
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Old + New
We believe cities are the greatest artifacts of man, containers of collective myths and desires. STUDIO V explores and renews cities by creating contemporary architecture that incorporates and enriches history while expressing the ideals of our time.
Our designs combine old and new, integrate modern architecture with historic structures, and contrast craft and digital fabrication. Our research reveals historic layers of sites and structures while our architecture incorporates the radical recycling of industrial and historic artifacts including bridges, tanks, warehouses, buildings, former secret laboratories, and grain silos into surprising new uses and successful public spaces.
Edges + Centers
Our architecture addresses the forgotten spaces of cities, to support entrepreneurs, reconnect neighborhoods, and promote equity. Our expertise in resiliency, affordable housing, waterfront design, public parks, brownfield remediation, reinventing infrastructure, and cultural spaces is transforming former edges into the new centers of urban life.
Structure + Movement
Our architectural designs incorporate expressive lattice shells, cable-nets, state of the art sustainable materials, and innovative solutions to save endangered historic structures. Our innovative approaches to digital fabrication are transforming public spaces, from an award winning underground street in Japan, to the longest bar in North America, to a pedestrian passage on a bridge over Niagara Falls.
News
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Majora Carter and STUDIO V to transform a 1908 Cass Gilbert train station for Bronxlandia, an event and performance space
Architect's Newspaper
STUDIO V’s design calls for conservation and restoration of what remains of the Cass Gilbert station, though with a contemporary twist. Where they remain in salvageable condition, the three original brick walls clad in terra-cotta tiles and the terrazzo floors will be largely preserved and restored. The retail storefronts with metal gates will be replaced by wall-to-wall assemblies of glass, steel, and perforated metal. The station’s slate roof, patinated copper eaves, and French Renaissance dormers with Gothic trefoil motifs and finials will be restored. The original chimneys, removed in the 1930s, will be reconstructed as mesh cages containing heat pumps and energy-efficient mechanical systems.
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Charney Companies Announces The Green House, A One-Of-A-Kind Residential Destination, Is 90% Leased
Real Estate Weekly
In the heart of Long Island City, and surrounded by restaurants, museums, street art and excellent transportation, Charney Companies new development The Green House has quickly reached 90% leased.
Located at 10-25 Jackson Avenue between 50th and 51st Avenues in Queens, The Green House features 46 luxury rental apartments, with 30% of the units designated as affordable. The architect for The Green House is STUDIO V Architecture.
“We don’t believe in generic design— architecture must build on the history and context of its site,” says Jay Valgora, FAIA, founder of STUDIO V. “Long Island City is defined by industrial gridded warehouses, historic brick and terra cotta architecture and a vibrant arts scene. STUDIO V’s design for The Green House reinterprets these traditions with custom terra cotta grids industrial bronze mesh, and a 3-story glass lobby providing a gallery to the street." -
How to Use Bar & Restaurant Design to Elevate Guest Experience
Bar & Restaurant Magazine
There have been themed bars and restaurants as long as there have been curious, hungry, and thirsty customers to fill them. However, what do you do when your customers are part of a savvy, well-traveled generation and feel they’ve seen everything? And how do you impress this group when they have already been exposed to interesting culinary and cultural ideas through the ever-expanding number of traditional and social media channels?
Jay Valgora, founder and principal of New York City-based STUDIO V Architecture, stresses it is not enough for a space to be decorated in a certain style to underscore what’s on the menu. The job needs to be approached as an all-encompassing adventure or mini-vacation.“We need social spaces beyond streets and parks,” explains Valgora. “While [people met up] in a hotel lobby, a private social club, or even shopping malls in the 20th century, it’s restaurants in the 21st Century. They are the stage sets of the modern city…places of connection...a respite from routine, reconnecting with friends, meeting new friends, a first date, a celebration." -
1515 Surf Avenue Continues Its Ascent In Coney Island, Brooklyn
New York YIMBY
Construction is rising on 1515 Surf Avenue, a two-tower residential complex in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Designed by STUDIO V Architecture and developed by LCOR, the project consists of 26- and 16-story structures that will span 470,000 square feet.
Recent photos show the progress that has occurred since our last report on the project’s groundbreaking in September 2021. The shorter tower has topped out while the 270-foot-tall volume is still rising, with fewer than ten floors left to complete. -
Reinventing and Reconnecting Waterfront Communities
Cornell University AAP Alumni Archive
As a Fulbright Fellow, Jay Valgora (B. Arch. '85) created an ambitious proposal to transform and regenerate London's Royal Docks. He was 25 at the time and had "fallen in love with these crazy, industrial infrastructures, quays, and great warehouses." He was also fascinated by the potential to repurpose this "magnificent architecture of obsolescence."
Little did Valgora know, back then, that fulfilling this potential would become his life's work. Project by project, the founder and principal of STUDIO V Architecture has been advancing his vision of reinventing waterfront properties to help create sustainable, resilient communities.