Project · 2026 · Olympia DUMBO, Brooklyn
The Olympia Built-In
Olympia DUMBO, Hill West Architects' sail-shaped tower on the Brooklyn waterfront. The work lives on the interior. The building is the address.
The brief
A wardrobe, a desk, and a quiet place to put things down. Built into a single wall, in a tower designed to be looked at.
For a private residence inside Olympia DUMBO, Hill West Architects’ sail‑shaped tower on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Two tall wardrobes, a stack of drawers, a vertical bookshelf niche, and a rift‑oak desk that turns into the corner under floating oak shelves. White painted cabinetry edge to edge, baseboard to ceiling. No hardware shows. From across the room it reads as a calm painted wall. Step closer and the wall starts to make sense.
Every door open. The wardrobe, the niche, the drawers. The full system at once.
01 · The room
02 · The system
Closed, it’s a wall. Open, it’s a house.
Two tall wardrobes for hanging. A stack of deep drawers in between, the bottom three deep enough for folded sweaters, the top two shallow for the small things. A vertical bookshelf niche on the far end. The desk turning into the corner with oak shelves floating above it. Behind every painted face: white melamine carcass, adjustable solid shelves, soft‑close runners, pencil‑edge interiors.
03 · The curve
Where oak becomes wall.
The desktop is rift‑sawn white oak, chosen one board at a time for the straightness of its line. Where the top rolls down to meet the painted face of the cabinet, we cut a soft, hand‑shaped curve through solid oak edge‑banded to the surface, then sanded the joint until the line read as continuous wood.
The hard part isn’t making the curve. The hard part is making the curve sit a quarter inch beneath the painted face, so the oak appears to dip behind it, like one material slipping under another.
04 · Inside the desk
The drawer keeps its own counsel.
Pull the desk drawer all the way out and the rule we work by becomes visible: the inside is finished as carefully as the outside. Hard maple sides, through‑dovetailed at every corner. A maple drawer bottom that floats in dadoes, never glued or pinned, so it can move with the season.
A single maple divider, oriented across the run, marks two compartments. Pens on one side. Everything else on the other.
05 · The reveals
No hardware. Every door knows where to open from.
Every door and drawer opens on a recessed shadow line: a 6 mm finger reveal cut into the back of the panel face. The painted finish is acrylic‑cured, three coats, hand‑rubbed between each. Seam tolerances at 1.5 mm on the doors, 2 mm at the drawer fronts. Tight enough to feel intentional. Loose enough to swing for years.
Four small problems, four quiet answers. The wall is made of these.
06 · Details
All projects
Browse the work →
Limited availability
Have a project
in mind?
We work with a limited number of clients at a time. Tell us about your space.
Start a projectStart a project
Tell us about your space.
We work with a limited number of clients each season. The more you share, the better we can respond.