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Why shouldn't the outside of a modern apartment building look like the inside of a Petri dish?

South African architect Lindy Roy has designed a very intriguing and elegant facade for the High Line 519 condominium apartment building at 519 West 23rd Street that employs curved, almost-amoeba-shaped stainless-steel screens that overlap floors in the center of the building's glass facade.

The building is now under construction and completion is expected in late spring or summer next year.

The building, which is being developed by Sleepy Hudson, will have 11 full-floor apartments with 10-foot-three-inch ceilings, video security, central multi-zone air-conditioning, recessed lighting, washer-dryers and walk-in closets.

The steel screens, or scrims, are in front of glass French doors, on the south facade of the building. The north facade of the building has balconies that overlook the High Line elevated railroad that will become a park.

The windowed master bathrooms will have teak and ebony benches for storage, six-foot cast-iron tubs and the shower floors are slatted teak. Kitchens will have Canapa lacquer and Tortora glass cabinetry, Sub-Zero refrigerators and wine coolers and Miele appliances. The two penthouses will have wood-burning fireplaces and there is a garden duplex unit.

Ms. Roy's firm is Roy Design. She recently design Vitra USA's headquarters and Hotel QT at 125 West 45th Street near Times Square for Andr?alazs. She was the winner of the Museum of Modern Art/PSI Young Architects Competition in 2001.
Architecture Critic Carter Horsley Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.