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AKA 25 Years of Architectural Innovation
For 25 years, New York architectural firm Andre Kikoski Architect (AKA) has been creating globally acclaimed projects in the commercial and residential spheres, garnering more than 40 international awards for its compelling work.
Evolution and flexibility are key elements in the success of an architectural practice – adapting and responding to changes in how we live, to communities taking on new identities, to both micro and macro swings in global conditions. They’re qualities present in abundance in the New York-based firm of Andre Kikoski Architect (AKA), which has been creating seminal projects in the commercial, residential, hospitality and product spheres for almost a quarter of a century.
“As the firm has evolved, it has engaged more deeply with critical real-world issues – from the transformation of the office to global food security – and has sought to envision increasingly innovative architectural solutions,” says the firm’s founder, Andre Kikoski. That architecture has often been the anchor point of neighbourhoods in transition, such as AKA’s first project, Suba, which won a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Restaurant Design on its completion in 2002. “Occupying three floors of a 1909 tenement building on what was then a desolate street, Suba has been credited with playing a pivotal role in transforming the Lower East Side into the vibrant hotspot that it is today,” says Kikoski.
A similar narrative played out more recently, when two abandoned buildings in New York’s Bushwick were transformed into a buzzing retail and cultural precinct. “The Wyckoff Exchange signals Bushwick’s arrival as a new creative urban centre, while still reflecting its industrial past. It has become a catalyst for the evolution of the surrounding neighbourhood, a model for economical adaptive reuse and a recognised work of public art in its own right.”
AKA’s distinctive handprint isn’t just evident in large-scale commercial work. Multi-residential projects have always been part of the firm’s diverse skillset, as evidenced in landmark developments like One Hudson Yards, where it created the deeply considered interiors of one-bedroom and three-bedroom model apartments; and 75 Kenmare, a seven-storey, 7,700-square-metre apartment complex at the intersection of SoHo, Chinatown and Little Italy, with a detailed handcrafted concrete façade featuring vertical striations of Canadian poplar.
Hospitality is another cornerstone of the practice, as embodied in The Wright restaurant, the first interior addition to NYC’s iconic Guggenheim Museum in the 50 years since it opened – and named after the building’s legendary architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Custom metalwork, fibre optic-layered walnut panels and a luminous white canopy of overlapping membranes coalesce to create a heightened dining experience centred around a site-specific installation by British artist Liam Gillick.
With the hospitality world largely debilitated during the pandemic, AKA showed its inherently adaptive nature by pivoting towards the single residential milieu. In the past several years, it has created myriad projects, including 2 West Water, three waterfront townhouses in picturesque Sag Harbour that are a distinctive coalition of classic artisanal brick and sleek structural glass; and One Madison Park, a 32nd-floor pied-a-terre for an art collector, where a striking curation of works is displayed to perfection against an elevated material background of brass, cashmere, teak, leather and marble.
Post-pandemic, the workplace has been reimagined significantly, evidenced in AKA’s cutting-edge design for the New York headquarters of PR and marketing agency Prosek Partners. Responding to a brief from the CEO, Jen Prosek, for an office that would foster creativity and connection, the workplace abounds in colour, texture and nature – anthropomorphic ‘tables’ are made of preserved live moss and sustainably harvested birch trees – while lush sofas by Giorgetti imbue a sense of comfort.
The final chapter in AKA’s storied history is its collaborations with renowned global brands including Swarovski, Kohler and Ligne Roset. For Swarovski, the firm reimagined traditional glass chandeliers to create the ReveaLED collection, simple sculptural squares embedded with recycled crystals which conceal LEDs. The One range for Kohler brings design-led thinking to tapware, where geometric metal tap forms feature a handle inlaid with marble in four colourways.
